Amidst the NBC late-night line-up controversy, Conan O’Brien has released an official statement explaining his position on the matter.

Earlier this week NBC announced the cancellation of Jay Leno’s show in order to move it to a later time slot.

Conan says:

People of Earth:

In the last few days, I’ve been getting a lot of sympathy calls, and I want to start by making it clear that no one should waste a second feeling sorry for me. For 17 years, I’ve been getting paid to do what I love most and, in a world with real problems, I’ve been absurdly lucky. That said, I’ve been suddenly put in a very public predicament and my bosses are demanding an immediate decision.

Six years ago, I signed a contract with NBC to take over The Tonight Show in June of 2009. Like a lot of us, I grew up watching Johnny Carson every night and the chance to one day sit in that chair has meant everything to me. I worked long and hard to get that opportunity, passed up far more lucrative offers, and since 2004 I have spent literally hundreds of hours thinking of ways to extend the franchise long into the future. It was my mistaken belief that, like my predecessor, I would have the benefit of some time and, just as important, some degree of ratings support from the prime-time schedule. Building a lasting audience at 11:30 is impossible without both.

But sadly, we were never given that chance. After only seven months, with my Tonight Show in its infancy, NBC has decided to react to their terrible difficulties in prime-time by making a change in their long-established late night schedule.

Last Thursday, NBC executives told me they intended to move the Tonight Show to 12:05 to accommodate the Jay Leno Show at 11:35. For 60 years the Tonight Show has aired immediately following the late local news. I sincerely believe that delaying the Tonight Show into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. The Tonight Show at 12:05 simply isn’t the Tonight Show. Also, if I accept this move I will be knocking the Late Night show, which I inherited from David Letterman and passed on to Jimmy Fallon, out of its long-held time slot. That would hurt the other NBC franchise that I love, and it would be unfair to Jimmy.

So it has come to this: I cannot express in words how much I enjoy hosting this program and what an enormous personal disappointment it is for me to consider losing it. My staff and I have worked unbelievably hard and we are very proud of our contribution to the legacy of The Tonight Show. But I cannot participate in what I honestly believe is its destruction. Some people will make the argument that with DVRs and the Internet a time slot doesn’t matter. But with the Tonight Show, I believe nothing could matter more.

There has been speculation about my going to another network but, to set the record straight, I currently have no other offer and honestly have no idea what happens next. My hope is that NBC and I can resolve this quickly so that my staff, crew, and I can do a show we can be proud of, for a company that values our work.

There has been much speculation as to what will happen with Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Fallon, and even Carson Daly.  Let’s wait and see how it all plays out…

Uh oh!  Miley Cyrus appears to be a LIAR!  You know her controversial tattoo that reads ‘Just Breathe‘ right under her left breast?  And, remember how she gave an ‘admirable’ explanation about how meaningful the tattoo was?  Well, it seems that the tattoo WAS meaningful… back when she was dating JUSTIN GASTON!

Originally, of the ‘Just Breathe’ tattoo, Miley said:

“It reminds me not to take things for granted. I mean breathing — that was something none of them could do, the most basic thing. And I put it near my heart, because that is where they will always be.”

That isn’t the case though!  The tattoo USED to read:  ’Justin‘ —  As in:  JUSTIN GASTON!

Miley had the tattoo CHANGED (as in she had the ‘IN’ removed)  because her current boyfriend, Liam Hemsworth, was NOT too happy.

According to one of Hollywire’s own, Miss Alexa, an avid reader of CrazyDaysAndNights.Net, she said the anonymous author knows for a FACT that the tattoo once read ‘Justin’.  This author actually REVEALED today that the following blind item he posted last month to be about Miley Cyrus, Justin Gaston and Liam Hemsworth.  The original blind item read:

“This A list tweener has a problem. Well more than one problem but there are some things that can never be taught. Anyway, she had a boyfriend. Not exactly being a role model she got his name tattooed on her body in a place most people won’t see for a few more months. Now though, she has a bigger problem than what people say about her tattoo and its location. She has a different boyfriend and he doesn’t like opening the presents so to speak and seeing another name so our tweener is going to change it but can’t decide if it should be the new boyfriend’s name or something generic like don’t chew gum with your mouth open.”

Tisk Tisk!  Miss Miley Cyrus…  How are you gonna spin this one?

(P.S.  Great job Lex for figuring out this story!)

Entertainment and Politics go hand in hand so it was only fitting that we had to report on the news that United States President Barack Obama has been awarded with the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.  

And in true Lindsay Lohan, Brit Brit and Jon and Kate plus 8 fashion, the news wires are buzzing with controversy. Why the fuss? According to a report on Yahoo.com, “Some around the world objected to the choice of Obama, who still oversees wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and has launched deadly counter-terror strikes in Pakistan and Somalia.”

Whatever the case may be, one things for sure. Barack knows how to make history! As CNN points out in their coverage of this award, “Obama’s recognition comes less than a year after he became the first African-American to win the White House. He is the fourth U.S. president to win the prestigious prize and the third sitting president to do so.” 

Rock on Barack, the world is a stage and our eyes are on you Mr. President.

We all know she loves smoking the green stuff and was caught by the paparazzi toking up in front of her house and she’s been caught yet again doing something she shouldn’t by the paps. Damn those paps!

Kristen Stewart, who just turned 19 years old in April, was hangin’ out, shootin’ the shit and unwinding with some coworkers on-set after a long day of filming on the “Runaways”. And no, she wasn’t toking it up again, but she was seen enjoying a Heineken. I’m pretty sure she knows that you have to be 21 to drink…not that she cares or anything.

Here are some stills from the video that is circulating.

I say, WHO CARES! Live it up. Drink good beer, at least she wasn’t drinking a PBR!

SIDE NOTE: Kristen showed off her latest 70’s rock getup on the set of her film “The Runaways”, in Norwalk, CA.  K-Stew and Joan are looking more and more alike every day. But since Kristen is playing Joan in “The Runaways”, I guess that’s a good thing.

“The Runaways” hits theaters next year.

In honor of the release of Terminator Salvation this week, we’ve put together a list of the top ten celebrity blowups, meltdowns, and ass-kickings to commemorate Christian Bale’s infamous verbal tirade while on the set of this film.

10. Alec Baldwin

Divorces are messy, especially when there are children involved.  Apparently Alec Baldwin didn’t like the fact that his daughter Ireland wasn’t answering his phone calls when she was at her mother, Kim Basinger’s house.  So he tells Ireland what he really thinks of her…

9. Kanye West

Kanye loses it at LAX, grabs a pap’s camera and smashes it into pieces.

8. Kanye West (again)

Kanye loses it once more at the 2007 MTV VMA’s when he lost in every single category he was nominated for.  For those who have trouble understanding Kanye due to his screaming, he says something to the effect of “I lost to the Black Eyed Peas last year!” “Give a black man a chance!” and “I hate MTV, I’m never coming back!”

7. Bill O’Reilly

Bill O’Reilly goes nuts on his crew after having difficulty reading his teleprompter.  Classic blowup!

6. Britney Spears

Do any of you remember that time Britney Spears shaved her head to look like Mr. Clean, and then in a rage took an umbrella to a pap’s car like it was her job?  She didn’t necessarily need anger management so much as she needed a psych ward but she qualifies anyway!

5. Tobey Maguire

Poor Tobey.  He’s just trying to leave a parking lot with his wife in the car, and the paparazzi won’t move to let them through.  What choice does Tobey have?  He’s gotta go speidi-psycho on them!

4. Akon

What do you do when a kid in the audience at one of your concerts throws a piece of trash at you?  Why, you pick him up over your head and throw him off the stage of course!  Akon has this technique perfected, check it out below!

3. Perez Hilton

A security guard accused The Queen of All Media of harassing Tori Spelling even though the two are close friends, so Perez took it upon himself to rip the security guard a new one.

2. Bjork

Does politely welcoming someone into Bangkok cereally qualify for a severe hair-pulling, cat clawing, ass beating? According to Bjork it does:

1. Christian Bale

How could we not make Christian Bale’s tirade against the DP of Terminator Salvation the #1 spot on this list?  Christian Bale’s blowup has officially set the bar for all verbal tirades henceforth, that’s how intense his was!

If you haven’t heard it already, below is some audio from the set of Terminator Salvation in which Christian Bale goes American Psycho on his DP’s ass.

For those of you who don’t know, for two years I have been teaching at the Luoyang University of Science and Technology in the central-eastern province of Henan. The recent outrage among Chinese Americans about Miley Cyrus’ “slant-eyed” picture scandal went wholly unnoticed here on the mainland, so I was inspired to bring Jackie Chan’s recent comments about freedom for Chinese people to the attention of my Chinese college students and report about it here on Hollywire.
At a recent business conference in Hainan, the island province in the south of China west of Hong Kong, Chan made this comment -

“I’m not sure if it’s good to have freedom or not. If you’re too free, you’re like the way Hong Kong is now. It’s very chaotic. Taiwan is also chaotic. I’m gradually beginning to feel that the we Chinese need to be controlled. If we’re not being controlled, we’ll just do what we want.”

The Chinese are a fiercely proud culture and take deep offense to foreigners who criticize their country or government. Something like Miley Cyrus’ picture scandal doesn’t even show up on the radar over here, but something like Jack Cafferty’s thoughtless remarks on CNN last year caused a major, major uproar throughout the mainland.

This time, however, the offensive remarks are coming from none other than Jackie Chan, arguably the most famous Chinese superstar in the world. Hong Kong legislator Leung Kwok-hung called Chan’s remarks “insulting” to the Chinese people and insisted that “the Chinese aren’t pets.”

Hong Kong and Taiwanese news outlets, as well as foreign sources, have reported on Chan’s comments, but the situation has been largely ignored by the press in mainland China. Now for the first time, Hollywire’s foreign correspondent in China (that’s me) will bring you the common perspective of a few of the citizens of the Chinese mainland (read more reactions at end of this article).

“I think what Jackie Chan said is right. We Chinese have been controlled for a long time. We don’t know what is right. We need our government to lead us.”
-Fan Di, 19
Luoyang, China

“I think everyone needs freedom. Everyone can do whatever they want. If we want to do something, no one can control us. China is the same as any other country.”
-Wang Jing, 21,
Luoyang, China

“I agree with Jackie Chan’s opinion. The population of China is too large. If everyone has freedom, they’ll do whatever they want and our lives will be a mess. Civilization or society will be in a degraded state.”
-Li Long Fei, 21
Sanmenxia, China

The Luoyang Institute of Science and Technology.

As of today, Chan is not welcome in Taiwan, and the Democratic Progressives Party have called for him to be cut as the spokesman for the Deaflympics team, and blogcritics.org has made the rather ridiculous statement that “Chan is a fascist.” You can agree with Chan or not, or side with the current avalanche of criticism, but we could all do well to stop for a second and have a look at what real, everyday Chinese people think about Jackie Chan and freedom for their country.

The following are some more written thoughts from some of my Chinese college students:

“I think I agree with him. I think many Chinese people only care about themselves, and they don’t want to carry out some of the basic duties of citizenship. So, I think Chinese need to be controlled.”
-Su Li Jun, 20
Luoyang, China

“I think his words are too extreme. Freedom and control must exist together. Without some kind of control, pure freedom is only theoretical. But without freedom, control can only make everything worse.”
-Wang Pan Pan, 22
Han Gu Guan, China

“I think what he said is right, because sometimes people need to be controlled. If we can do what we want, society will not develop.”
-Wang Yi, 19
Luoyang, China

“I think Jackie Chan’s words are right, it’s in accordance with the Chinese situation. If everyone has freedom and there is no control, the society will become chaos. It’s a bad thing for our country.”
-Tian Yi Ping, 20
Luoyang, China

“I have no idea why Jackie Chan would say these words, but I think his view is too extreme.”
-Li Long, 21
Kai Feng, China

“I agree with that. I think freedom is relative. There are many people in China. If everyone does what they want to do, maybe the society will become disorderly.”
-Liu Shu, 20
Luoyang, China

“I agree with Jackie’s view. We should be controlled. Because our citizens have not reached a high level of competence.”
-Zhang Jia Bao, 20
Luoyang, China

“I think freedom is good for Chinese, but control is necessary for some people. If everyone is free maybe some people will only care to profit for themselves.”
-Ma Dan Wei, 20
Luoyang, China

“I think he is right. As we all know, most Chinese are farmers. They just know how to work in a farm situation. If all people have freedom, there will be many troubles. So I think he is right.”
-Mao Shuai, 21
Xin Xiang, China

“I think the Chinese need freedom because the Chinese people are honest and great, so the world should give us our freedom.”
-Zhang Zhao, 21
Luoyang China

“I think the Chinese need to have freedom. Mostly all Chinese people are kind-hearted, so I think Jackie Chan’s idea is very extreme.”
-Qin Tian Tian, 21
Luoyang, China

“I think the Chinese need freedom. If we have freedom, we will get what we want and we will live in a happy life.”
-Gao Pan, 21
Jiao Zuo, China

“I agree with Jackie Chan. China has too many people so not everyone can do what they want to do.”
-Zhang Xu, 20
Luoyang, China

“I think the Chinese need freedom. In the old times, all the people were controlled. They were too eager to have freedom and it caused wars. Then the peace was broken.”
-Guo Yan, 20
Nan Yang, China

“I think his opinion is right, because is people have too little restraint, society will become confusion. We will not have a normal life.”
-Zhang Xue Wen, 21
Xin Yang, China

“I think the Chinese need freedom but we also need rules to control us. China has a huge population. If we are not controlled, our country will develop slowly.”
-Yao Dong, 21
Ji Yuan, China

“I think that what Jackie Chan said is right. Because China has so many people that is we all have freedom it will lead to a society of confusion.”
-Zuo Ya Ting, 19
Xin Xiang, China

“I think the media has mistaken what Jackie Chan means. He means that Hong Kong and Taiwan  are too free, so that they can’t control their actions. Because Hong Kong and Taiwan are more open than the mainland, the people think they study everything from abroad, but they’re wrong.”
-Hu Yuan, 22
Sanmenxia, China

“I think he’s right. If there are no rules, people will become more selfish. Because of people’s greed, more and more crimes will appear.”
-Jin Qian, 20
Luoyang, China

“I think it’s good for the Chinese to have freedom. China has been controlled for a long time, so the Chinese don’t have comfortable freedom now. It only needs time, Chinese can study to use the freedom.”
-Ji Yan Wu, 21
Luoyang, China

“I think Jackie Chan’s opinion is right. In China, all Chinese people are controlled. Sometimes I feel that we can’t say something about our own ideas or do something that we want. Chinese people should have freedom.”
-Jin Bo, 21
Xin Yang, China

“I think his remark is very good. That’s a good idea, I agree with him, because this is Chinese tradition.”
-Li Xiao Kai, 21
Luoyang, China

“I think Jackie Chan’s view is right. I support his remark, because China has a big population and if the Chinese are not under control it will cause big troubles.”
-Qiao Zong Lei, 22
Xin Zheng, China

“I agree with Jackie Chan, because China’s population is too big and if people are not under control the country will become a mess.”
-Du Yu, 21
Nan Yang, China

“I think Jackie Chan’s remark is right. We Chinese really need to be controlled. This way we can avoid many troubles.”
-Zheng Xuan, 21
Luoyang, China

“I agree with Jackie Chan. Chinese people need to be controlled. Not all Chinese people need freedom.”
-Hu Xin Yu, 22
Luoyang, China

“I don’t agree with Jackie Chan’s words. Because I think freedom is very important. If we don’t have freedom, we are not living a full life.”
-Wang Jin, 21
Luoyang, China

“I think Jackie Chan is right because we must have order.”
-Li Shao Kai, 21
Luoyang, China

“I think Jackie Chan’s freedom remarks are not exactly right. He doesn’t understand our Chinese abilities. Everyone needs freedom, including us. We don’t have it yet, but how do you know that we can’t make good use of it?”
-Wang Yang, 19
Sanmenxia, China

Mom-to-be, Jamie Lynn Spears, has apparently been sporting some really nice shiny jewelry that appears to be an engagement ring from boyfriend Casey Aldridge.

Spears, 16, has been flashing her new ring to all her friends and family in Louisianan and Mississippi, a source close to the family tells PEOPLE.

“She’s got an engagement ring,” the source says. “She’s been showing it off, talking about it.”

Spears and Aldridge are expecting their baby this summer. No official word yet on a wedding date for the couple.

I don’t know if I like the idea of Jamie Lynn getting married at such a young age. I think she needs to wait awhile before she jumps into any thing too quickly, again. I mean she could be a mom and a divorcee all before she’s 21. What do you think?

On Monday, the judge granted Jamie Spears permission to “sell or dispose of” an undisclosed number of his daughter’s seven unused cars.

Lawyers for Jamie Spears stated that the cost for maintaining the cars was too expensive that the sale of “a certain of” her cars “will save substantial expense to the conservatorship estate.”

Among the singer’s cars are two white Mercedes (a SL65 and a CLK350), a white Mini Cooper convertible, and a black Audi.

It sucks more and more to be Britney Spears. The girl that once had it all is now losing everything. What more will be taken from her, her house?

Kevin Federline is giving credit to Jamie Spears, Brit’s dad, for coming forward and tending to the aid of his sick daughter.

Federline’s spokesperson, Eliot Mintz, has attributed Britney’s recent improvements to Jamie, saying, “Jamie Spears went a long way in terms of stabilizing an environment that surrounded Britney which was wildly in a flux. It’s clear that Britney is in a different place now that she was two weeks ago.”

It seems that something in Brit’s life is improving. How or why, I don’t know but being that she was permitted to see her sons, Jayden James and Sean Preston, on Saturday and again on Monday says something.

I just hope we start hearing good stories about Brit again, how she is improving and getting healthy. I want somebody so bad to just go and save her.

Yay! Congrats to Jamie Lynn for passing her GED! What’s next for the mom to be? Well she says she is hoping to continue her education in Louisiana. She is looking into Louisiana State for college.

“I haven’t thought about what I might study,” she has said. “I’ll have to look more into that. But if I went anywhere, I think it would be fun to go to LSU.”

A family friend tells People magazine:

“She’s already got her diploma,” according to the friend. “Everybody is so supportive of her. She wants to take her ACT. She’s not wasting any time. People don’t know her. When Jamie Lynn gets something in her head, she’ll make it happen.”

Jamie Lynn has been photographed with her mother outside of Tangipahoa Parish School System Adult Education Center, which is a GED preparation site. It so happens that it also has a Title I Parent Center, where they teach parents how to help there children develop learning skills.