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When a rumored couple becomes a public couple, the gossip tabs have no choice but to manufacture some new “private” drama. An item in this week’s OK! does just that, claiming LeAnn Rimes is “pressuring” beau Eddie Cibrian to have a baby.

The story doesn’t give much detail… because there’s not much reality to it. It’s a nifty trick:  If Rimes becomes pregnant, the mag can claim it knew all along; if she doesn’t, it can say Cibrian didn’t cave to the so-called “pressure.”  As for another big life decision, a “source” tells the magazine “marriage is not something either of them is eager to jump into anytime soon.”

And for Rimes, neither is motherhood. Her representative confirmed what Gossip Cop suspected: that the story is “completely fabricated.”

(PerezHilton.com)

Gossip Cop gives credit where it’s “due.”

Yesterday Perez Hilton reported “Real Housewives of New York” star Bethenny Frankel was pregnant.

Frankel, who recently announced her engagement to Jason Hoppy, denied the rumor while jokingly Tweeting that she “was preggers w perez hilton’s 9 blue haired babies.” Her rep told our good friends at Extra baby talk was “not true.”

Well, it turns out Perez was right. Frankel confirms to People today she is indeed pregnant.

The blogger’s track record with baby bump buzz isn’t very good – see his recent gaffes with Halle Berry and Anna Paquin. But his sources were correct when it came to Frankel.

As for the “reality” star, we’ll just suggest that in the future she take a cue from “real” stars, who would sooner give a “no comment” than outright lie.

Gossip Cop wishes the couple and their future child well.

(PerezHilton.com)

Not only is Perez Hilton poor in reading comprehension, but he’s also miserable in biology. Journalism’s Joker, who claimed that Halle Berry and Anna Paquin were pregnant because they look pregnant, has employed his medical expertise once again, this time with Mariah Carey. He writes: “We see a hint of bump on you, girl! Don’t deny it!”

After having examined a photo of Carey performing outside the Today Show, Dr. Perez concludes, “A mini MiMi would just be precious!”

A rep for Carey assured Gossip Cop, “She is not” pregnant.

Gossip Cop thinks the only “bump” here must have been the one Perez received to the head, and believes the prognosis for his reporting is very dire.

We’re still waiting for Perez’s exclusive “Betty White Baby Bump!”

(OK! Magazine)

OK! has taken the week off from another mistaken “Twilight” cover . . . to instead offer a misleading Jennifer Aniston cover that trumpets, “Exclusive: Pregnant at 40!”

The rag even features a picture of Aniston with an arrow that says, ‘It’s a bump!”

So is Aniston now pregnant? NO. A rep for the star tells Gossip Cop, “Jennifer is not pregnant.” Of course, that wouldn’t stop OK! in its latest bait-and-switch stunt.

Classically, OK! writes: “‘I feel [motherhood is] in my future and I’m on the verge of it in some way,’ the “Love Happens” star has said in recent months.”

Recent months? And how about the context in which that statement was made?

Aniston said those words (and more) WAY BACK in early December ’08 in an Entertainment Weekly cover story, promoting “Marley & Me.” And the context was Aniston discussing her role as a mother of three in that film. Here’s the full quote she gave (at the time) when discussing playing a mom: “I feel like that’s in my future and I’m on the verge of it in some way — or it’s something I long for. So it was great to sort of dip your toe in it.” Odd that OK! didn’t mention the “or it’s something I long for” part.

A cover designed to lead readers to believe that Aniston is now pregnant, and using old quotes that were edited to fit this new story? Once again – so not OK!

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During an appearance on tonight’s “Jay Leno Show,” the host asked Halle Berry, “How do you always look so good… you always look terrific,” to which she thanked him and replied that it “must mean all these pregnancies rumors can be, like, put to bed.”

The Oscar winner went on to say she was getting a “complex” from all the pregnancy talk, adding that she had begun to think, “I gotta stop with all the burgers or something.”

Hope this actually does put to bed all the rumors.

(Summit)

What a week it was for Gossip Cop!

Gossip Cop really busted Star magazine with its story that “Grey’s Anatomy” lead Ellen Pompeo’s husband, Chris Ivery, cheated on her – during her pregnancy – with a teen.  A lot of outlets picked up that story, but Gossip Cop exclusively obtained an email from the teen that read, “I talked to Star Magazine and they were trying to offer me $20,000 for information about Chris. That is ridiculous because nothing is true about us having a relationship.” We confronted Star about the pay-to-say, but not surprisingly no one got back to us.

That same rag got it all wrong when claiming that Natalie Portman just moved to L.A. to be closer to Sean Penn, who’s going through a divorce. Besides the fact that he’s been linked to another woman, Portman moved to the West Coast a year ago.

Despite numerous outlets reporting that Penelope Cruz was pregnant, Gossip Cop led the charge and finally busted that bad dish.  We have it upon good authority that she is “100 percent NOT” pregnant. Plus, we saw some photos of her recently smoking. Still that didn’t stop Perez Hilton. He wrote that despite Cruz’s own “claims” that she’s not pregnant, he believes that she is – and he called her a “liar.” Whoa!

In more pregnant news, the National Enquirer ran a piece that said Mel Gibson was concerned that his pregnant girlfriend wasn’t eating enough. Not true, said his publicist, who recently had dinner with the couple and noted how “healthy” she looked. The Enquirer also waited a good 30 seconds after “The Office” star John Krasinski and Emily Blunt got engaged to say they were fighting over wedding plans. But a rep for Krasinski told Gossip Cop: “There is nothing factually accurate to the story in the National Enquirer except that John and Emily are engaged.”

Then we smelled a rat with a Brad Pitt gerbil story. The British tab The Sun claimed he bought his kids an approximately $83,000 gerbil run, complete with mazes, tunnels and seesaws. That story was full of gerbil pellets.

This week John Mayer was the subject of two wrong romance stories. When Janet Charlton’s Hollywood reported that “The Hills” (and Kristin Cavallari) were alive with the sound of Mayer’s music, we were the first on the scene to say there was “No Such Thing” going on between the two. (Of course, that didn’t stop journalism’s joker Perez Hilton from repeating the fabricated tale). And the other inaccurate love story involving Mayer was an In Touch cover piece on Jessica Simpson that claimed she was secretly hooking up with him again. Yeah, also not true.

In other love news, Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony were once again the subject of nasty nuptial rumors, but Gossip Cop spoke to sources close to them and found out it was just the same naysayers singing the same old (off-key) tune. The couple is still making beautiful music.

And it seemed like yesterday the blogs were saying Vanessa Hudgens and Zac Efron were engaged. Well, the rumor this week was that they are headed for splitsville. Gossip Cop investigated and didn’t find proof to support this sophomoric “High School Musical” tale.

The British Star magazine was trippin’ when it printed a story that Rihanna and Chris Brown, who are legally barred from being near each other, are now planning a trip together to Mexico – meaning they would be outside of U.S. jurisdiction.  The only distance to be noted here is that this story is far from true.

With “Sex and the City” filming in New York this week, there were many a rumor Cop had to handle.  For starters, in the course of just a couple of days, a New York paper said Kim Cattrall was still with her much younger chef boyfriend (uh, they broke up months ago), and that she’s now an American – nope, Cattrall is still a Canadian citizen. Then, rather oddly, the tabs came to Gossip Cop to verify a rumor that Chris Noth (aka “Mr. Big”) was engaged in real-life. We contacted Noth, who texted us back, “Not true.” And, Gossip Cop had amazing footage of thousands of fans peacefully surrounding Sarah Jessica Parker as she moved from one area of shooting to another. Totally worth a look.

The dynamic duo of Perez Hilton and In Touch lost all touch with reality when they claimed that Rosie O’Donnell and Star Jones were going to team up for a reality show. Gossip Cop debunked that quickly. And on the subject of reality TV, after ignoring John and Kate Gosselin all summer we posted a piece and asked you all what you felt about them. Incredibly, the vast majority of you expressed the same sentiment as Gossip Cop – who cares about the two of them? (Barring something unbelievable, don’t expect to see their names in Gossip Cop after this.)

This week the New York Post wrote that Lindsay Lohan was staying under the radar in Austin, Texas, where’s she’s slated to film the movie, “Machete.” Sadly, the New York newspaper somehow missed that Lohan was in New York. We even showed footage of the paparazzi staking her out while shopping in Manhattan – just about the same time that the erroneous “Austin” item was being written. Not to be outdone, New York’s other tab, The New York Daily News did a piece insinuating that Kate Hudson is engaged to Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez. That paper also struck out. They are not engaged.

Across the pond, the Daily Mail said that Uma Thurman was going to walk down the aisle in Kensington Palace, where Princess Diana had lived, but Gossip Cop proved that that, too, was a royal lie.

“Twilight” Highlights: Gossip Cop started the week off nicely, having taken a bite out of Now magazine, which published fabricated Robert Pattinson quotes, but then removed them from its website after Gossip Cop called them out on it. Later we posted a video of the paparazzi hounding Pattinson and Kristen Stewart. The footage showed the two being pursued as they got into a taxi in Vancouver, and then Stewart literally fleeing from the cab and sprinting into their hotel. We debated long and hard whether to show the footage (shot by a third party), and ultimately we felt that writing about it might lead people to think that, like our competitors, we were making it up or were exaggerating the details. But by presenting it, we believed, everyone could accurately assess (even eyewitness) for themselves the harassment that the two “Twilight” stars unfortunately have to endure.

Then there was that OK! cover that was not OK. It blared, “Rob Risks It All For Kristen,” and cautioned, “How his engagement to Kristen is putting Rob’s career and the future of Twilight in jeopardy.” Engagement? Not true. There was so much more, including how the filmmakers were concerned that Pattinson and Stewart hanging out together would affect how people felt about the “New Moon” plot in which her character falls for Jacob Black, played by Taylor Lautner. One, the story is nonsense, and two, nice job insulting “Twilight” fans and implying they can’t separate fact from fiction. Speaking of fiction, there were some other doozies this week, including Pattinson and Stewart sneaking off to an island off of Canada’s coast for a weekend getaway. Stewart, by all accounts, was in Vancouver that weekend. That story was more like Fantasy Island. And we ended the week with the new, expanded, non-bootlegged HD version of the “New Moon” trailer. If you haven’t seen it, check it out. And if you have, watch it again!

(Oh, and then there was that thing about Robert Pattinson using steroids. No, really.)

There was so much more this week, like our correcting that Casey Wilson was dumped from “Saturday Night Live” because of her weight; Megan Fox being taunted by a cursing paparazzo; the Michael Jackson tribute concert being postponed and moved to London; and the surprising news that Ellen DeGeneres was tapped to be the fourth judge on “American Idol.”

And yes, for 30 glorious minutes on Friday it seemed like karma had caught up with Perez Hillton, whom Gossip Cop wrote about for The Huffington Post. For half an hour, PerezHilton.com was temporarily down, and so inaccurate reporting and snide comments were briefly suspended. Many rejoicing readers and Twitterers wrote Gossip Cop wishing that it would be permanent. All we can say is spread the word about Gossip Cop to ALL of your friends, and maybe one day that dream will come true.

(PerezHilton.com)

A couple of days ago, we wrote, “Gossip Cop can assure you 100 percent that [Penelope Cruz] is NOT in the family way.”

At the time we contacted a source super close to the stunning actress who told Gossip Cop, “She is not pregnant.” And we even said, “Hope Gossip Cop has settled that rumor once and for all.”

Yeah, no such luck.

Journalism’s joker Perez “Scoop” Hilton stirred the pot again with a piece titled, “Pene’s Not Pregnant! (Really???).” First he wrote, “Even though Penelope Cruz has appeared to be sporting quite the baby bump these days, Pene claims the rumors aren’t true!” and then added, “we think we may have a liar on our hands!”

Liar?  That’s a pretty strong word, Scoop.

Well, Gossip Cop went back to our impeccable source, who repeated that Cruz is “100 percent NOT” pregnant.

So let’s see, do you believe our source’s claims (and Cruz’s own), or the dude who regularly gets stories wrong and steadfastly stood by his “exclusive” that Fidel Castro is dead?

Let us know in the comments!

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Oddly, there’s nothing the tabs like more than a troubled pregnancy story, and the National Enquirer is no exception. This week the supermarket tab has gone after one of its favorite targets, Mel Gibson, claiming his pregnant girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva’s “eating habits have friends worried about the couple’s unborn baby.”

And it’s not just friends, reports the Enquirer. In a piece titled, “Friends Fear: Mel’s Baby Momma Too Skinny,” the tab says Gibson, a father of seven, would like her to put on a few more pounds. “Mel asked Oksana to try to eat more,” an Enquirer “source” says. That same person remarks that his estranged wife “Robyn gained tons of weight during her pregnancies, but she always managed to get back in shape. Mel’s used to that kind of mentality.”

Gibson’s rep, who recently had dinner with the couple, tells Gossip Cop that the story is – well, we’ll half quote him and say – “bull,” and adds, “she is a gorgeous, healthy pregnant woman.”

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Remember yesterday’s crazy rumor identifying “Home Alone” kid Macaulay Culkin as the biological father of Michael Jackson’s son, Blanket?

Well, consider this “Sperm Alone 2: Lost in Baggage Claim.”

The Mirror recently reported that the King of Pop’s family intends to fly to England a sperm sample Jackson supplied to a Los Angeles donor bank last year. The reasoning? There is so much money at stake with the late superstar’s estate, members of Jackson’s inner circle worry that scheming fortune seekers will do anything to get ahold of his DNA to create a new heir.

Jackson supposedly authorized a number of people to have access to the sample, but the family doesn’t know who or how many, and, according to a source, fear that “something sinister could easily happen.” The London clinic where Jackson’s sample would now reside has “extremely strict” security.

Gossip Cop reached out to several people close to the Jackson family, but none could validate the rumor.

Look:  We understand that a mammoth fortune hangs in the balance, that there have always been questions about Jackson’s paternity, and that stranger things have happened during the pop icon’s life and death. There is reason to protect his DNA.

But the man was just laid to rest and (already) has three children whose summer has been dominated by non-stop, completely speculative coverage of their family’s future. Just because “anything is possible,” as the anonymous source tells the Mirror, it doesn’t mean everything is. Gossip Cop will continue to do its best to separate the fact from the fiction.

(Splash News)

In the latest Paparazzi Patrol:

Kim Kardashian pulls up to dinner at Mr. Chow in Beverly Hills, only to have photographers surround her, mistake her for pregnant sister Kourtney, and whine about fans “blocking” her entrance. But, hey, at least they let her out of the car!

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE!

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The Sun believes it has cracked the case of Blanket Jackson’s unknown sperm donor. According to the British tab, “Macaulay Culkin is the mystery dad of Michael Jackson’s son Blanket.”

There ya go, everyone! It was Jacko play pal Macaulay Culkin! (Now we all know what he was doing “Home Alone.”)

The Sun even managed to find a source - conveniently without a first or last name -to say, ““Jackson idolised him – that’s why he asked Mack to donate sperm . . . Deep down, I think he always wished Mack was his son. Creating Blanket was the next best thing.”

Well, glad that’s solved! Oh, wait. This story is totally made up.

A rep for Culkin told Gossip Cop it was “too preposterous for us to even acknowledge.”

Frankly, Gossip Cop is feeling just a wee bit left out, since at this point we’re pretty much the only ones who have not been identified as Blanket’s possible biological father.

(Splash News)

In the latest Paparazzi Patrol:

Katherine Heigl hosts a baby shower for friend Ellen Pompeo. The paparazzi then shower guests – including Kate Walsh and Sandra Oh – with unrelenting flashes.

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE.

(GettyImages.com)

Gossip Cop would like to thank the New York Post for confirming that Anna Paquin is NOT pregnant . . . nine days after we said she wasn’t.

Perez Hilton speculated back on August 21 that Paquin, engaged to “True Blood” co-star Stephen Moyer, was “carrying more than just her hat!” when photographed in Beverly Hills. He was – surprise!! – wrong. And Gossip Cop set the record straight that same day. But it took until this morning for the Post to come to the same conclusion.

“True Blood,” a smash hit for HBO, airs a new episode tonight. We look forward to the Post‘s recap sometime in mid-September.

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If we were Australia’s NW Magazine, we’d be counting down the days to our riches!

An online sports betting site has offered odds on which of nine celebrity bachelors will be the next to become a father. And “Twilight” hunk Robert Pattinson leads the way with a +350 pay line! (Actors Shia Labeouf and Adrian Grenier are next, at +400 and +450, respectively.) This means that a $100 bet on Pattinson will win $350.

NW, you’ll recall, shocked the world with its “exclusive” back in July that Pattinson and co-star Kristen Stewart were expecting a baby.

(Pause for laughter.)

We’re guessing that NW staffers are online as we speak, putting their hard-earned money down on Pattinson’s imminent fatherhood.

(Pause for more laughter.)

Gossip Cop would also like to remind you to bet before it’s too late on whether Lady Gaga is more than just a lady.