The cast for Dancing With the Stars’ ninth season has been announced and, with 16 contestants, is the show’s largest to date. They are:
• Tom DeLay: Former House Majority Leader known as “The Hammer”
• Donny Osmond: Singer, brother of DWTS Season 5 contestant Marie Osmond, and choreographer of his own freestyle moves in “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “White & Nerdy” video
• Macy Gray: Baby-voiced singer and performer on DWTS Season 4 (who famously commented on Apolo Anton Ohno’s “huge bulge” to reporters)
• Kelly Osbourne: Reality star/”singer”
• Debi Mazar: Actress (Entourage) and friend of Madonna
• Mya: Singer best known for the “Lady Marmalade” cover also featuring DWTS Season 8 contestant Lil’ Kim and appearing in the film Chicago
• Melissa Joan Hart: actress (Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Clarissa Explains it All, Drive Me Crazy) and candy store owner
• Michael Irvin: NFL Hall of Famer and former Dallas Cowboys teammate of DWTS Season 3 winner Emmitt Smith
• Ashley Hamilton: Comedian/actor best known for being the son of DWTS Season 2 contestant George Hamilton and the ex-husband of Shannen Doherty
• Aaron Carter: Singer and brother of Backstreet Boy Nick Carter
• Kathy Ireland: Model/entrepreneur featured in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue for 13 consecutive years
• Natalie Coughlin: U.S. swimmer with 11 Olympic medals, became the first female athlete to win six medals in a single Games at Beijing
• Louie Vito: Pro snowboarder
• Chuck Liddell: UFC Hall of Fame fighter known as The Iceman
• Mark Dacascos: Actor and martial artist best known as the Chairman of Iron Chef America’s Kitchen Stadium
• Joanna Krupa: Swimsuit model most recently partnered with Terrell Owens on ABC’s The Superstars
Tom DeLay is the name DWTS executive producer Conrad Green expected to have “most people splattering on their cornflakes” following this morning’s announcement on Good Morning America. How did it come about? “I know it will sound stupid, we just asked him,” Green tells EW. “We usually throw a few Hail Marys every season to people we don’t think are gonna say yes, but we think, oh, why not ask him. Occasionally, they come off. As it turns out, Tom DeLay likes to do a bit of the Two Step, he likes dancing with his wife. His daughter is a country dancing champion, I believe. He actually really enjoys dancing. Now I don’t know whether that translates into him being the next Mario Lopez on the dance floor, but I think he’s gonna come into it with a big smile on his face and probably surprise a lot of people cause he’s gonna embrace it so much.”
Is DeLay the dancer you’re most excited to see when DWTS returns with a special three-night premiere on Sept. 21? Vote in our poll after the jump. Will he make it to the three back-to-back double elimination episodes in Weeks 5, 6, and 7 (which host Tom Bergeron is already referring to as “the ballroom bloodbath”)? Who will take home the Season 9 trophy? Predictions welcome in the comments section. READ FULL STORY »
“Have you seen the filth they serve in this place? Beige, beige…everything’s beige!” –Ruth Van Rydock (Joan Collins), disparaging the food at her sister’s estate, in Marple: They Do It 
Another reason to love Brooke Elliott’s Jane Bingum from Drop Dead Diva: When she goes night-night, she dreams of Tim Gunn. Yes, in a bit of savvy cross-branding courtesy of Lifetime, Project Runway‘s dapper mentor made a quick guest appearance on Diva, popping out from behind Jane’s mirror to share his wisdom. Gunn was only on screen for a single minute, but as those of us who have an above-average obsession with Runway know, Mr. Make It Work does not waste words — even when they’re scripted by TV writers. With five quick little sound bites, he managed to get me even more off-the-wall- bonkers excited that Runway is finally sassing its way back into our living rooms this Thursday. His bons mots: 
We won’t have a complete box office report until tomorrow, but The Time Traveler’s Wife made a tidy $7.7 million yesterday, and if 
WARNING! The following essay — the last lecture in our 
With those famous words in Slaughterhouse Five (1969), author Kurt Vonnegut introduced one of the most memorable time travelers and depictions of time travel that literature has ever given us. The premise: Billy Pilgrim has gone crazy from failing to grapple with the horror he experienced during World War II many, many years before. Unmoored from sanity, the haunted optometrist convinces himself he’s been abducted by aliens who believe that time is eternally present, that past and future are happening in the now — Cubism made real. Pilgrim — his mind desperately flailing to save itself from its own existential crisis — adopts this conspiratorial perspective, as well as the sanguine philosophy that comes with it: that we are prisoners to predestined, already-written fate. And it is not a pleasant experience. “Billy is spastic in time, has no control over where he is going next, and the trips aren’t necessarily fun. He is in a constant state of stage fright, he says, because he never knows what part of his life he is going to have to act in next.”
Well, Jeff made Big Brother history last night when he used the coup d’etat power that America awarded him (as a reminder, America voted to give Jeff the ability to replace one or both of the House Guests who were up for nomination at either last week’s eviction or this week’s). Although we introduced the coup d’etat power during Big Brother All-Stars, it was not used. I have to say it’s been fun to experience the amount of energy and anticipation that built up to last night’s eviction. How does everyone feel about last night’s results?
