Laurence Fishburne’s 19-year-old daughter is making a serious push to break into Hollywood — and she’s doing it with a hardcore sex tape.

TMZ has learned Montana Fishburne is starring in a porno flick for Vivid Entertainment – explaining, “I’ve watched how successful Kim Kardashian became and I think a lot of it was due to the release of her sex tape.”

Unlike the celeb she admires — Montana is not arguing that her tape was stolen or obtained illegally.

TMZ states that the flick is set to be released in August.

Tom Hardy is bisexual, although he likely wouldn’t identify himself as such. Well, welcome to America, Mister. In these parts, if it walks like a duck — well, you know the rest. The 32-year-old British actor — who’s film credits include Inception, Bronson and Star Trek Nemesis — lit up the blogosphere this week after he copped to having had what Wendy Williams would call “How You Doin?’” relationships in the past.

As a boy? Of course I have. I’m an actor for fuck’s sake,” he tells the Daily Mail. “I’ve played with everything and everyone. I love the form and the physicality, but now that I’m in my thirties, it doesn’t do it for me. I’m done experimenting but there’s plenty of stuff in a relationship with another man, especially gay men, that I need in my life. A lot of gay men get my thing for shoes. I have definite feminine qualities and a lot of gay men are incredibly masculine.”

Tom is currently engaged to fellow British actress Charlotte Riley and has a two-year-old son with a former girlfriend.

Award-winning singer/songwriter Kara DioGuardi has been fired from judging panel of American Idol as part of producers’ ongoing cast shakeup and just hours after talk show hostess Ellen DeGeneres announced her departure from the series after just one season.

DioGuardi, 39, will be replaced by Aerosmith rocker and repeat rehabber Steven Tyler, TMZ snoops said Friday.

According to online gossips, FOX and Idol producers have finalized deals to have Tyler and pop star Jennifer Lopez join lone original A.I. judge Randy Jackson at the table when Idol returns for its 10th season in Jan. 2011.

Caught up in quite the scandalous situation, Elisabetta Canalis has been laying low since being implicated as a participant in a nightclub cocaine and prostitution ring in Italy.

With reports breaking earlier this week, the gorgeous girlfriend of actor George Clooney is said to be a bit shaken while also grateful to still have her man by her side.

Of the situation, Milan party girl Francesca Biagini told E! News, “I have heard that Elisabetta is distraught but that George is standing by her. In Milan, everyone is talking about this. It’s a huge scandal and we think more celebrities will be named.”

Talking about seeing Miss Canalis at one of the now-closed establishments, Biagini continues, “Elisabetta was a regular at Hollywood in Milan for several years. She’s friends with a lot of the models who live in the city. I last saw her there at a birthday party last year for the captain of AC Milan. I never saw her doing cocaine, but she’s always the life and soul of the party. She’s a fun girl.”

In order to get an extension on the Viagra patent, pharmaceutical company Pfizer is working on a deal with the Food & Drug Administration to sell a children’s form of the male enhancement-drug to treat a rare lung disorder that affects about 600 kids a year.

Here’s how it would work: Viagra modifies blood flow which could reduce unusually high blood pressure in a child’s lungs, also known as pulmonary arterial hypertension. Patients suffer chest pains, fatigue, and dizziness.

Viagra’s patent expires in 2012, but if Pfizer can create this children’s version of the drug to meet FDA requirements, the patent can be extended six months.

Even before Amazon.com announced its third-generation Kindle July 28, speculation abounded about what new features the online retailer would add to the device, in order to better compete against the likes of Barnes & Noble’s Nook and the Apple iPad.

On the furthest edge of that speculation, some suggested that Amazon would introduce multi-touch capabilities, or even a color screen. But the unveiled Kindle demonstrates Amazon’s continued focus on the basic e-reading experience: the screen has 50 percent better contrast, the body is smaller and lighter, the storage capacity has doubled—and new bells-and-whistles have been kept to a minimum.

Both the third-generation Kindle, which retails for $189, and the new Kindle Wi-Fi, which retails for $139, will ship Aug. 27.

Now the question becomes: What’s Amazon planning next? Fortunately, the new Kindle comes with a handful of “experimental” features, which in turn could provide a few clues. 

“The experimental category represents features we are still working on to enhance the Kindle experience even further,” reads a note on Amazon’s Kindle page. “Try them out and let us know what you think.”

Those features include Read-To-Me, a text-to-speech feature that can “read English newspapers, magazines, blogs, and books out loud to you, unless the book’s rights holder made this feature unavailable.” A Voice Guide can read aloud the Kindle’s menu options, home-screen content listings, and item descriptions.

Other features include the Webkit-based browser, which is apparently free to use over Wi-Fi, and the ability to listen to music and podcasts. “Transfer MP3 files to Kindle to play as background music while you read,” suggests Amazon’s note. “You can quickly and easily transfer MP3 files via USB by connecting Kindle to your computer.” Amazon also offers free access to Wikipedia.

Is Amazon experimenting with making the Kindle more of a tablet PC? Or are these new features merely a way of augmenting the basic e-reading experience? Both Amazon and Barnes & Noble, which produces the rival Nook e-reader, have been augmenting their devices’ operating systems over the past few months; the Nook now offers Android-based games, for example, while the newest Kindle software allows users to share select passages from e-books via Twitter and Facebook.

But analysts acknowledge that Amazon’s greatest threat in the category could be the Apple iPad. With that device’s ownership base recently estimated by one analyst to exceed that of the Kindle’s, and other tablet PCs in manufacturers’ pipelines, Amazon could very well intend to build out the Kindle’s functionality—via a browser, and other Web-centric features—in a way that appeals to bibliophiles on the fence.

However, should Amazon decide to buttress the Kindle’s future editions with additional features, it runs into another issue: cost. After Barnes & Noble decided to radically reduce the price of its Nook e-readers in June, Amazon found itself caught in a spiraling price war; its new Kindle’s price matches that of the Nook, but the Kindle WiFi undercuts the similarly stripped-down Nook WiFi by $10.

“With these cuts, eBook readers from Barnes & Noble as well as Amazon now are priced at about the breakeven level with their Bill of Materials (BOM) and manufacturing costs,” William Kidd, director and principal analyst of financial services for iSuppli, wrote in a June 24 statement following price-dips for both the Nook and Kindle. “With zero profits on their hardware, both these companies now hope to make their money in this market through sale of books.”

Adding more tablet-like features has the potential to drive the Kindle’s per-unit costs to unacceptable levels; in which case, Amazon may feel inclined to pursue its current strategy: battle the iPad and competitors such as the Nook by offering a more refined e-reading experience.

Venturing out for a late night talk show stop, Jennifer Aniston was on-hand for the “Tonight Show” at NBC Studios in Burbank, California on Thursday (July 29).

The former “Friends” star looked darling in black as she spent time conversing with Jay Leno while promoting her upcoming movie “The Switch” – which hits theaters on August 20th.

During the course of the interview, Jay asked Jen if she would be willing to go to a bank to get pregnant (a la The Switch), to which Jen replied, “Jeez, that question’s never been asked to me.”

Thrown off a bit by the idea and ready for Leno to play a movie clip, Miss Aniston added, “You go to the bank and you have a card…I honestly don’t know exactly.”

A jury sentenced a south Texas man to death on Thursday, four days after convicting him of capital murder for beheading his common law wife’s three children in 2003.

It was the second time John Allen Rubio has been sentenced to death for the slayings. He was convicted of killing the children all under the age of four — smothering, stabbing and ultimately decapitating them — in a windowless Brownsville apartment.

Before entering the sentence, Hidalgo County District Judge Noe Gonzalez asked Rubio if there was anything he would like to say.

“I’m sorry it all had to come to this,” Rubio said quietly. “I thank the jury for giving me a chance to show what I could.”

Gonzalez, who said he had sentenced more people to death than any judge in south Texas, said he recognized that a lot of people went through what Rubio did, citing his abusive and troubled childhood.

“I don’t know what happened, but I know what this jury found,” Gonzalez said. “I have never seen a crime like this.” Jurors deliberated for about four hours.

Jurors on Monday found Rubio guilty on four counts of capital murder — one charge for each child and one for the children together.

Rubio was previously convicted of the murders in 2003 and sentenced to death. But a state appeals court overturned his conviction in 2007 because statements from the children’s mother, Angela Camacho, were wrongly allowed as evidence during the trial. Camacho pleaded guilty and is serving a life sentence for her role in the slayings.

At his current trial, Rubio pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but the jury rejected that defense.

After 8 years and two children with partner Allison Adler, Sara Gilbert has now officially come out of the closet, reports Entertainment Weekly. The Roseanne star says she doesn’t believe her sexuality will be a problem on upcoming motherhood-focused talk show The Talk, which she is producing and co-hosting with Julie Chen, Leah Remini, Holly Robinson Peete, Sharon Osbourne, and Marissa Jaret Winokur.

“I’m not an expert on this, or I don’t analyze these things. I’m just sort of living my life. I plan to put my heart and soul into this show, and I plan to continue acting, and I don’t think it will be a problem,” Gilbert said. “I don’t ever really think of things as out or in,” she added. “I just think I am who I am, and when topics come up that are appropriate, I’ll talk about them and share when it seems right.”

Ellen Degeneres has quit her role as a judge on American Idol – less than a year after she was drafted in to replace Paula Abdul and now it looks as though Jennifer Lopez is poised to take her place.

A person familiar with negotiations for Lopez squealed on Thursday that the songstress/actress/dancer has inked a deal to join Fox TV’s hit singing contest as a judge. Jenn – whose hits include “Waiting for Tonight”
and “Love Don’t Cost a Thing” — has appeared as a mentor on Idol.

Deadline.com dished the deets on JLo’s budding relationship with the show in a scoop published late Thursday: “Jennifer Lopez, who’s singing and acting career has been on the skids after her recent movies failed at the box office and she was dropped by her record company Sony. We hear her manager Benny Medina, whom she once fired, orchestrated the meeting with the American Idol producers a month ago, and negotiations have been ongoing ever since. We’ve learned a deal was closed earlier this week under the utmost secrecy.”

DeGeneres announced she is leaving the show after one season, following fellow judge Simon Cowell out of the door. The Emmy-winning comedienne-talk show host said she realized that while she “loved discovering, supporting and nurturing young talent, it was hard for me to judge people and sometimes hurt their feelings.”

Ellen also blamed her departure on her hectic work schedule.

Lopez is one of many pop star names being bandied about as potential new judges. Reps for singers Elton John and Justin Timberlake have denied recent reports that the stars were in talks to fill the empty seat vacated when Cowell ditched A.I. to jumpstart the US adaptation of the UK’s The X Factor. Still said to be in the running are Harry Connick Jr., Jessica Simpson, and Chris Isaak.