It’s been more than a year since Heath Ledger’s tragic death, and Michelle Williams is still dealing with the loss. “After the first year, the pain is less intense; it’s less immediate,” the actress tells the October issue of Vogue. “But the magical thinking goes away too. And that’s a whole new reckoning.” For some time after the death, Williams, 29, says she didn’t know what her boundaries were in regards to speaking about her former boyfriend, who died of an accidental drug overdose at the age of 28 in January 2008. “I can talk about grief because that’s mine, about single parenting, about trying to balance work and kids,” she said. “But what I don’t have to talk about is what happened between Heath and me in our relationship.” Williams and Ledger, who first met when they filmed “Brokeback Mountain,” had daughter Matilda Rose, now 3, during their three-year relationship. The couple amicably split in August 2007. “‘Brokeback Mountain’ was an unrepeatable moment in time, a very charmed time in my life,” she shared. “I was in love. I was in a movie I was proud to be a part of, and with a beautiful brand-new baby. Everything was good in that moment.” Sadly, the actress’ good times turned dark when Ledger passed. “I was holding it together by a string and a paper clip in the fall and winter,” she reveals. “I didn’t know if I could keep it all together… You console yourself by saying it’s all a deepening process. But it’s wired.” Williams says it is the couple’s daughter that has helped her through the grieving process. “Every time I really miss him and wonder where he’s gone, I just look at her,” she says. Another source of strength – and love – came to the actress last year when she began dating director Spike Jonze. “I thought falling in love again was the only thing that was going to save me from the pain,” she says. “This erroneous idea: It just makes things more complicated.” As for her future, Williams is looking forward to raising Matilda. “I feel hopeful and grateful,” she says. “For a while I thought we had lost everything. It makes you want to love better and live better.”

While I’m happy to hear that Michelle has gotten to a better coping space since Heath’s death, I don’t imagine that the pain of loss will ever be entirely gone. On the positive side, Matilda Rose will be a constant reminder of Heath’s incredible impact on the world and thru her, the best of him will live on. It’s great to see Michelle back in the swing of things … she looks pretty fantastic with this Mia Farrow short hair’do. After the jump, check out a few photos from Michelle’s Vogue magazine photospread …

If you would like to read more of this Vogue coverstory on Michelle Williams you can read the edited version online HERE or read the full version in the actual magazine.

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Michelle Obama is in Vogue. Literally. As President Obama deals with crises on various fronts, the first lady follows tradition and steps into the March issue of Vogue, on stands in New York and Los Angeles Feb. 17. The magazine has photographed nearly every new first lady since Lou Hoover in 1929. Bess Truman is the only first lady since that has not appeared in Vogue, and Jackie Kennedy opted for a drawing by René Bouche. Only Hillary Clinton and Obama have made the cover. Wearing a magenta silk dress by inaugural gown designer Jason Wu on the cover, Michelle Obama’s image is captured by celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz, who also shot inside photographs for the article by Andre Leon Talley, who discloses that he is a “passionate supporter” and “volunteered in the campaign trenches.” And while other friends and supporters emphasize Obama’s priorities as far as daughters Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, and her desire to make the White House more inclusive, the first lady talks about those ideals when it comes to fashion. “First and foremost, I wear what I love,” she says. “That’s what women have to focus on: what makes them happy and what makes them feel comfortable and beautiful. If I can have any impact, I want women to feel good about themselves and have fun with fashion.” Vogue notes that Obama’s “lithe frame — an uncommon figure for an American First Lady” and her leanings toward new names in American design, such as Wu and Isabel Toledo, who created the lemongrass ensemble she wore at the swearing-in, have prompted some to dub her the “new Jackie Kennedy.” Vogue insists that Obama’s style is more “pragmatism, not glamour.” When she wore the black cardigan over the Narciso Rodriguez dress during the president’s Nov. 4 acceptance speech in Chicago’s Grant Park, she received some harsh criticism. “I’m not going to pretend that I don’t care about it,” she says. “But I also have to be very practical. In the end, someone will always not like what you wear. … I was cold; I needed that sweater!”

OMG, I love her. She deffo has the right kind of style and altho some of her outfits have drawn criticism, I think that she generally gets it right. While I contend that a woman as intelligent and as accomplished as Michelle Obama should FIRST be lauded for her talents, I absolutely understand why so many people are to taken with her sense of style as well. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a faboo First Lady in the White House like Michelle :) After the jump, check out a couple other photos of Michelle Obama from this new issue of Vogue magazine …

The black outfit was designed by her fave designer Narciso Rodriguez (natch) and the salmon colored outfit is from J. Crew. She looks amazing in both … which really goes to show that style knows no cost. If you got it, you got it … and Michelle Obama has deffo got it. I hope we get to see her on the cover of more magazines … we shouldn’t let President Obama enjoy all the limelight.

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In the world of Gossip Girl, there are few signs of economic hardship. Mostly, it’s a contest between the haves and have-mores: For example, the Humphrey clan—members include Serena’s on-and-off boyfriend Dan (Penn Badgley), his sister Jenny (Taylor Momsen), and their hipster dad, Rufus (Matthew Settle)—lives in the artsy, waterfront area of Brooklyn that’s one part Williamsburg, one part DUMBO, and must find their way among families who divide their time among Park Avenue, the Hamptons, and Tuscany. After Lily’s latest husband, Bart, dies, the family learns that he “has more towers than Trump, more bucks than Bloomberg.” Thus far, the only character to suffer a serious reversal of fortune is Nate, played by Chace Crawford, who is forced to move in with the Humphreys when his father—a swindler and coke fiend—flees the country. In this New York, nothing as commonplace as bear markets can bring about financial ruin: It requires a dastardly character flaw. Gossip Girl was adapted from the best-selling young-adult fiction series by Cecily von Ziegesar, who was working as an editor at a book-packaging company when the idea floated up to create a more-contemporary line of fiction about private school kids in New York. Von Ziegesar, who had attended the Upper East Side girls’ academy Nightingale-Bamford and knew well the milieu, volunteered to take on the proposal. She invented the Constance Billard School for Girls, where Serena and her BFF and sometime-rival Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester) hold court. “The characters came right away,” von Ziegesar says over lunch at Fred’s in Barneys, a crowded watering hole for the blonde, slim, and soignée, and where von Ziegesar, who is blonde, slim, and soignée, fits right in. “It flooded out of me; I always wanted to write, but I never thought I’d be writing for teenagers” … The show has taken many departures from the novels, especially in the second season, which has abandoned any lingering pretense of term papers or gym class in favor of a Dangerous Liaisons romance between Blair and the sulfurous Chuck Bass (Ed Westwick), as well as what to wear for such an assignation. “The fashion is just unbelievable. You can watch our show on mute and be entertained,” Lively says. And she’s not overstating it. The characters wear designer clothes that teeter between unattainable chic and self-parody, be it Bass’s wearing a tuxedo covered with paillettes that shimmer like a matador’s suit or Blair’s attending the dean’s party at Yale with an Alice-in-Plunderland pewter-colored satin bow in her hair. For her part, Lively is entranced by Serena’s authentically local look. “Just being here, walking around, you pick it up really quickly,” she explains. “In New York, you put on skinny jeans and riding boots and a leather coat and handbag, and you take on that posture and character,” Lively says. “It becomes very natural.” Lively’s natural style? Costume National boots, dark Rag & Bone trousers, and a Joie cashmere vest over a Ports 1961 white pointelle cashmere sweater, punctuated by Chanel earrings, a Chanel handbag, and a Jeri Cohen diamond bracelet. (”They let me borrow it, and now I can’t take it off,” Lively says mischievously.)

The full interview can be read in the February issue of Vogue magazine (the truncated version is online HERE) but will prolly not offer anything all that new that we haven’t heard already. For me, the photos are the real draw. After the jump, check out a few photos from Blake’s Vogue magazine photospread …

Yeah, she looks pretty spectacular but with Vogue’s styling (and airbrushing) and photography by Mario Testino you’d expect nothing less than the spectacular. The photos are very sophisticated, I think, and show Blake in a more mature light. She deffo has that old Hollywood glam look. I really like these photos. What do y’all think? Are these great or what?

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Here she comes, in faded cutoffs and a tank top. Has there ever been a more casual star? A more unrepentant Southern California girl? I am standing in the midst of the dust and chaos—the clattering hammers, the buzzing saws—of the massive construction project that is Jennifer Aniston’s sprawling new Beverly Hills home. It is midday in late September, and Aniston is picking her way through the site. As she heads toward me she looks comfortingly—almost defiantly—the same as she always has. Long, sun-streaked hair. Check. Tanned yoga body. Check. Toe rings and hippie beads. Check. There will be no moody movie-star transformations, no fresh tattoos to prove how unpredictable she is. When I arrived a few moments earlier, a big, genial security guy helped me park my car among all the construction vehicles and then took me to an office where a man named Phil introduced himself as Aniston’s “estate manager.” An elegant fellow with a British accent, he is a holdover from her only slightly more grand life with Brad Pitt, when they owned a 12,000-square-foot Normandy mansion not far from here and a big spread in Santa Barbara. “He’s very…Phil,” says Aniston with a laugh. She stops for a second and, as she so often does, rethinks out loud. “Maybe we don’t mention that I have an estate manager.” And then: “He’s more like the butler.” … The post-Brad Aniston is one of the biggest tabloid stars in the world, and her image moves a lot of magazines. Partly because she took two years off from making films, she has been almost entirely defined lately by the tabloids as a woman who dates younger men and spends her days lolling around the pool in Cabo. Woody Allen recently said in an interview that “thoughtful people don’t take the tabloids seriously. They’re basically a form of entertainment.” Aniston knows this, but it still feels to her like a cross to bear. “You basically watch my life,” she says as we eat our chopped salads. “It happens in front of you. And I can protect it and try to control things only to a certain extent. I think what I’m doing now is letting go of the reins a little bit and saying, ‘It is what it is.’ But there is more to me than just a tabloid girl. This whole ‘Poor lonely Jen’ thing, this idea that I’m so unlucky in love? I actually feel I’ve been unbelievably lucky in love. Just because at this stage my life doesn’t have the traditional framework to it—the husband and the two kids and the house in Connecticut—it’s mine. It’s my experience. And if you don’t like the way it looks, then stop looking at it! Because I feel good. I don’t feel like I’m supposed to be any further along or somewhere that I’m not. I’m right where I’m supposed to be.” As we all know, ever since Aniston began dating Pitt in 1998, her love life has never been out of the news. Their divorce only ratcheted up the interest in her every romantic move. These days, the public fascination with her relationship with Vince Vaughn seems almost quaint. I ask her if there’s anything else to be said about that time. “I call Vince my defibrillator,” she says with genuine affection. “He literally brought me back to life. My first gasp of air was a big laugh! It was great. I love him. He’s a bull in a china shop. He was lovely and fun and perfect for the time we had together. And I needed that. And it sort of ran its course.” Most recently she’s been linked with John Mayer, whom she met last February at an Oscar party. “Barely knew his music,” she says. “And then we ran into each other a week later, and that was that.” The two began dating—Aniston flew to England to join him on his tour; they took a well-documented vacation to Miami—and partly because of Mayer’s past relationships with Jessica Simpson and Jennifer Love Hewitt, the paparazzi went bananas. Many people questioned Aniston’s judgment; Mayer, after all, is nine years younger and has a bit of a…reputation. To which Aniston says, half kidding, “People need to mind their own business! Did you ever think Claudia Schiffer and David Copperfield made sense?” She laughs, knowing that this has the potential for a good parlor game. “Did Susan Anton and Dudley Moore make sense? Wait! I got more! Did…did…did…Madonna and….” She trails off. “I don’t want to get a dog in that fight…but we’ll think of more.” We both laugh, and then she gets more serious. “But you know, it isn’t designed. Love just shows up and you go, ‘Oh, wow, this is going to be a hayride and a half.’ ” After they split in August, Mayer, having been trailed for days, famously lost it in front of the paparazzi while leaving a gym in New York. In one of the more ill-advised moves in the history of modern celebrity romance, he burst into a rant, saying, among other things, “If you guys are going to…run every lie under the sun…have me as a man who ended a relationship.” Mayer caught a lot of grief for his lack of chivalry, but Aniston chalks up his outburst to inexperience. “He had to put that out there that he broke up with me. And especially because it’s me. It’s not just some girl he’s dating. I get it. We’re human. But I feel seriously protective of him and us. Trust me, you’ll never see that happen again from that man. And it doesn’t take away from the fact that he is a wonderful guy. We care about each other. It’s funny when you hit a place in a relationship and you both realize, We maybe need to do something else, but you still really, really love each other. It’s painful. There was no malicious intent. I deeply, deeply care about him; we talk, we adore one another. And that’s where it is.” The aspect of Aniston’s tabloid persona that feels truly off base is that she is “needy” and “clingy” and “obsessive” about ex-lovers. In fact, just the opposite seems to be true. As evidenced from our conversation about Mayer, she seems entirely sanguine about how complicated and unpredictable love can be. She even seems to have made peace with her ex-husband. When I ask if she ever speaks with him, she says, “Yes!” in a tone that suggests that it is almost a silly question. How is he? I ask. She looks at me for a long couple of seconds and makes one of those classic Jennifer Aniston faces, one that lets you know that what she is about to say is going to be…ironic. “He seems…great?” she says. How often do you talk? I ask. “We have exchanged a few very kind hellos and wishing you wells and sending you love and congratulations on your babies. I have nothing but absolute admiration for him, and…I’m proud of him! I think he’s really done some amazing things.” I ask her if she can remember exactly when the post-divorce acrimony receded. “You mean, when were Brad and I healed?” she says. Yes, I say. “Well, it never was that bad,” she says, knowing that it will be hard for a lot of people to believe. “I mean, look, it’s not like divorce is something that you go, ‘Oooh, I can’t wait to get divorced!’ It doesn’t feel like a tickle. But I’ve got to tell you, it’s so vague at this point, it’s so faraway in my mind, I can’t even remember the darkness. I mean, in the end, we really had an amicable split. It wasn’t mean and hateful and all of this stuff that they tried to create about Brad can’t talk to Jen and Jen can’t talk to Brad because this person won’t allow it. It just didn’t happen. The marriage didn’t work out. And pretty soon after we separated, we got on the phone and we had a long, long conversation with each other and said a lot of things, and ever since we’ve been unbelievably warm and respectful of each other. Whoever said everything has to be forever, that’s setting your hopes too high. It’s too much pressure. And I think if you put that pressure on yourself—because I did! Fairy tale! It has to be the right one!—that’s unattainable.”

OY! I realize that this is a lot to read but the Vogue interview is very long … and there is still more. After the jump, if you so desire, read some more of the Vogue interview where the topic turns to Angelina Jolie (trust me, it’s worth reading) … and also check out a few photos from Jen’s Vogue magazine photospread …

When I ask her about Angelina Jolie, Aniston asks me to turn off the tape recorder for a moment. Suffice it to say, if there is never any love gained in the first place, there can be no love lost. But she did want to put a few things on the record. (Funnily enough, they involve some of the same issues brought up by the recent profile of Jolie in The New York Times, in which she talks about falling in love on the set of Mr. & Mrs. Smith.) She asks me if I ever saw a cartoon that appeared in the New York Post a couple of years ago that depicts Aniston talking on the phone in her kitchen. The bubble over her head says, HI ANGELINA…I DECIDED TO TAKE YOU UP ON YOUR OFFER OF A “SIT-DOWN TALK.”…In the drawing, Aniston is loading a shotgun, and there is a copy of Vogue sitting next to her. (The cartoon was inspired by an interview I did with Jolie for this magazine in January 2007 in which she said she would welcome the opportunity to “sit down” with Aniston.) Someone sent Aniston the cartoon (”the funniest thing I’ve ever seen,” she says), and afterward, she could not resist the urge to buy a copy of Vogue to see what the fuss was about. What really rankled Aniston about the piece was that Jolie felt the need to recount a detailed timeline of exactly how her relationship developed on the set of Mr. & Mrs. Smith, while Aniston was still married to and living with Pitt. “There was stuff printed there that was definitely from a time when I was unaware that it was happening,” says Aniston. “I felt those details were a little inappropriate to discuss.” Aniston, still galled, shakes her head in disbelief. “That stuff about how she couldn’t wait to get to work every day? That was really uncool.” … There is no doubt that Aniston is noticeably more confident. Even the prospect of turning 40 in February in ageist Hollywood doesn’t seem to faze her. “I’m not saying I’m 40. I’m 30-10. I don’t feel 40. I don’t know what it means. I just know that all of a sudden it’s something that’s in print next to my name. AND NOW SHE’S 40. It almost feels like some sort of badge of honor in a weird way.”

This interview deffo gives a different impression of Jennifer Aniston than we get from seeing mere photos of her. I imagine that it’s not easy to live one’s life like this but, as I always say, it comes with the territory of being a celebrity. I, for one, am glad that she’s finally gone on the record about some of this stuff … it puts things more in context and pushes away some of the conjecture. If you’re still interested, you can click HERE to read the full online version of Jen’s interview OR you can read the full, unedited (longer) interview in this month’s Vogue.

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The second pic is more … risqué … it features Daniel laying atop a big horse completely nekkid while veteran stage actor and his Equus co-star Richard Griffiths stands by looking … uncomfortable (or constipated, I can’t really tell). After the jump, check out the semi-NSFW image …

Ta-Da!

UHHH … it’s a weird pic, no question. If you’re interested in seeing a larger version of this image you can see it HERE. I’m not sure how I feel about this pic. I think his promo pics for the West End run of Equus were more interesting. That being said, David and I do have third row center seats for Equus on Broadway next month. I’m interested to see what all the fuss is about. I guess I’ll also be finding out if Harry Potter’s magic wand is worth all the hype ;)

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Looks like hockey star and Vogue intern Sean Avery is climbing the publishing ladder with remarkable agility, advancing from lowly intern to guest editor at mensvogue.com in just a few short weeks. In an online diary for the site, the New York Ranger gets shirtless in the Vogue fashion closet and dishes about his unlikely passion. “To me it’s simple: I like clothes. Always have,” he says. “I don’t watch sports. I don’t read about sports … Over breakfast in hotels when the Rangers are on the road, I read the Style section in The New York Times.” And Sean, who swapped his million-dollar Rangers salary for minimum wage (for the summer, at least), reveals that money’s not everything, waxing philosophical about the creative reward he experienced assisting on his first photo shoot. “As I watched the shoot progress,” he writes, “I had to wonder: Was the feeling this designer had — the pride of having his creations shot for the pages of Vogue — anything like the feeling I had after we beat the Devils in round one? … Was a young woman’s anticipation of a night on the town in her favorite new dress just a different version of a 12-year-old boy watching his favorite player No. 16 dominate New Jersey in five games? The world may never know — but that’s what I think.”

OMG … I love this guy. It sounds like this stint for Vogue magazine is the perfect job for a professional hockey player that neither watches nor reads about sports and pontificates about the connection between a woman’s anticipation of a night on the town and a young boy’s fascination with watching hockey. Seriously … he is my new favorite person ever. But wait … there are even more photos to be had of the stocky Left Wing New York Ranger “working” at the offices of Men’s Vogue …

The short pants! Ye gods, I love the short pants:

So … just how does a professional hockey player go about securing an internship at (arguably) the greatest fashion magazine in the world? Why, he writes the head honcho herself, Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, and asks for a job:

Earlier this year — just before the playoffs, actually — I wrote to the editor in chief of Vogue, Anna Wintour, and expressed my desire to intern for the magazine once my team won the Stanley Cup. After just a couple of days I got the answer I was looking for.

Yes, fortunately for Avery, the Rangers got cut from the play-offs (and the mighty Detroit Red Wings would go on to win the Stanley Cup this year) so he was able to realize his fashion dreams … and just what did Sean Avery learn from his experience working at Vogue?

What did I learn over the last month? Or, as everybody seems to want to know, What’s working at Vogue really like? Here’s what it comes down to: I make millions of dollars a year at a “job” that I consider to be pure fun. The people at Vogue don’t have that kind of salary. What they do have is a group of people working creatively and relentlessly because of their strong passion and love for fashion. I would challenge you to find another workplace — outside of sports or nursing — that has that. I hope to play hockey for several years to come. But after that I want to be a part of something creative — either styling or editing at a magazine. Being guest editor for Mensvogue.com this week is really the first time that I’ve been responsible for putting content together myself. And it’s opened up a new interest that I didn’t even know I had. So that’s what I learned. And if you’d like to learn something, consider this: If you feel like teasing this hockey player about an obsession of his that you might think is a little unusual, go right ahead. Just know that you may get your ass kicked by a very expensive pair of shoes — and that they’ll probably match both my belt and my shirt.

Again, I say, I love this man. You have to give him props for going after his dream, no matter what others may say about it (I imagine he can look forward to lots of ribbing from his New York Rangers teammates as they hang out in the locker room), and for staying true to himself. A lot of people could learn a lesson from Sean Avery.

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