What happened?  She could be Priscilla Presley’s long-lost sister.  Actress Lara Flynn Boyle was spotted out and about, and with her emaciated frame and puffy features, she was practically unrecognizable:

The 38-year-old’s bloated face, drooping jowls and bursting trout pout rendered her almost unrecognisable from the actress who first shot to fame in director David Lynch’s cult television series Twin Peaks.

Her famously fragile, childlike frame, which was left swimming in a beige pant suit, only added to her worrying appearance.

Lara, who formerly starred in popular US series The Practice and chalked up big screen credits including Men In Black 2, has struggled to keep her career as buoyant in recent times.

Six years ago, Lara, who once dated Jack Nicholson, admitted she dreaded getting older out of fear her Hollywood roles would dry up.

Then just 32, she said: “I know I may be running out of time. There are just not that many roles for older women.”

She added: “On a vanity level, I am not looking forward to ageing at all - I think I look pretty good now.”

When, when, WHEN will people in Hollywood learn…trying to appear younger than you are isn’t the answer to landing film roles.  There will always be someone younger and fresher-faced than you, and when you alter yourself you just become one of that crowd, just older.  Age gracefully, embrace who you are, and if enough women do this then maybe the Hollywood machine will take notice that we refuse to bend to an artificial standard of what a very few minority consider to be “beauty”.

As it is now, she looks much, much older than 38.  Hopefully this is a temporary effect of Botox or medication or something that will wear off.  I hate to see beautiful women do things like this to themselves because they think they need to live up to some anonymous and undefined “beauty rule”.  Stop now, before it’s too late!

Well, not sure if everyone in America wants to be a Pepper, but Dr Pepper sure wants to see Axl Rose release the long-awaited (and awaited and awaited) “Chinese Democracy” this year…so much so that the soft drink giant is offering a free can of Dr Pepper to every man, woman, and child in America (excluding Slash and Buckethead) if Axl releases his album in 2008:

Many have tried, but so far nobody has been able to pry the decade-in-the-works Guns N’ Roses album “Chinese Democracy” from the hands of lone remaining original member Axl Rose.

Now, Dr Pepper thinks it’s up to the challenge. The soft drink company says it will give a free can of Dr Pepper to “everyone in America” (excluding ex-Guns members Slash and Buckethead) if “Chinese Democracy” arrives anytime during the calendar year 2008. […]

“Chinese Democracy” was most recently scheduled for release in March 2007, but promptly vanished from the schedule without a new date being set. Rose said at the time that all the recording had been completed, but there were some “scheduling difficulties.”

It will be the first album of fresh Guns N’ Roses material since the 1991 sets “Use Your Illusion I” and “Use Your Illusion II.” Rose has reportedly burned through $13 million in recording expenses for “Chinese Democracy,” and also burned his bridges with the bandmates who helped him turn Guns into one of the biggest rock groups in the world by the early 1990s.

Now there’s motivation if I ever saw it!

Axl, for his part, doesn’t seem to be as thirsty as other people are:

We are surprised and very happy to have the support of Dr Pepper with our album “Chinese Democracy,” as for us, this came totally out of the blue. If there is any involvement with this promotion by our record company or others, we are unaware of such at this time. And as some of Buckethead’s performances are on our album, I’ll share my Dr Pepper with him.

Could somebody please fetch the diva a manicurist, I think he has a hangnail and it’s making him a cranky-pants.

Here’s a thought…why not just have Axl buy us all a Dr Pepper and skip the album release altogether.  It isn’t like G&R are, oh, what’s the word I’m looking for…relevant? Did it suddenly become 1987 again when I wasn’t looking? I stopped caring about G&R (outside of “Sweet Child o’ Mine”) about the time I stopped bleaching my hair like Cyndi Lauper’s. (don’t ask)

Besides, it looks like Miss Thang has been spending a little too much time with Mr. Plastic Surgeon and Miss Hair Oh-No-You-Dinnt. I mean, look at the guy. What happened?

Scuze me. I need to step out to the corner mart for a moment.

I drink Dr Pepper, don’t you know
It’s the original taste that I love so
And the taste is making Peppers
Everywhere I go…

I’m a Pepper
He’s a Pepper
She’s a Pepper
We’re a Pepper
Wouldn’t you like to be a Pepper, too?

Be a Pepper, drink Dr Pepper…

Cilla, what is going on?  Somewhere, Elvis is turning over in his grave at the sight of his Cilla’s face looking like The Joker.  She’s had an affinity for plastic surgery for years, but it seems that a while back she got more than she bargained for.  Turns out that the botox injections she received a few years ago weren’t botox at all, but low-grade silicone similar to what they use for lubricating car parts:

Priscilla, whose face looks … strange on “Dancing with the Stars,” went to Dr. Daniel Serrano around 2003. Serrano was a good-looking doc from Argentina who hooked into Hollywood’s social A-list and started giving them what he claimed were miracle injections that worked better than Botox.

In fact, Serrano was injecting industrial, low-grade silicone similar to what’s used to lubricate auto parts in Argentina into the faces of these women. Several women, including Shawn King, Larry’s wife, and Diane Richie, Lionel’s wife at the time, held injection parties in their homes, with Serrano needling them with the non-FDA approved drug that he had smuggled in to the U.S. Shawn King has said the injections created a lump in her lip that made it difficult to speak and drink liquids. Serrano charged between $300 and $500 a pop.

But wait, it gets worse. Serrano wasn’t even a licensed doc in the U.S. The injections caused lumps, paralysis and holes in the faces of some of the women (and some men) he injected.

Serrano, who was nicknamed Dr. Jiffy Lube, was indicted by the Feds for smuggling drugs, and the conspiracy and use of unapproved drugs. He was convicted, and last week he was released and is currently being investigated by federal immigration officials and could be deported.

BTW, Diane Richie was also indicted as an accomplice. She pled out and was placed on probation.

As for Priscilla — who had no idea she was being injected with silicone — we’re told she’s undergoing corrective work.

Does LRH know about this?

Seriously…whatever happened to growing old gracefully?  Girlfriend is sixty-one years old.  I’m not an ageist, I’m all for keeping up with fashion and I don’t think we automatically need to start wearing polyester pants and SAS shoes once we hit a “certain age”, but come on…there’s having a little fun, and then there’s…this.  This…is just creepy.  A little work is one thing, but she’s completely altered her face to where she’s unrecognizable.  Her face no longer looks alluring or even pretty.

Sexy is not an age, but this is not sexy.  This is scary.

Besides…there’s just something about seeing meemaw slithering along the floor looking like this that just isn’t right on so many levels.

In an interview with Harper’s Bazaar, actress Demi Moore says that she tries not to focus on her flaws when she looks in the mirror (when Ashton lets her use it, that is):

“Look, I would be lying if I said I don’t have moments of panic when I look in the mirror and see things creeping in that weren’t there before,” Moore, 45, tells Harper’s Bazaar for its April issue, about getting older. “But now I stop, and instead of focusing on my flaws, I think about all that I have in my life.”

Those rewards are not only tangible, she says, but human: “I have a wonderful marriage, I have three wonderful daughters, I have an incredible extended family, and I have loving, wonderful friends.”

As a result, she says, “when I look back in the mirror, the reflection I see isn’t so bad, because I’m seeing the beauty of my whole being and my whole life.”

Isn’t that just lovely.  I’m so happy that Demi has reached a place in her life where she’s comfortable with how she looks.  Of course, this is after hundreds of thousands of dollars of plastic surgery, including a knee lift, so I hope she’s good with it.  It’s nice when people get their money’s worth out of something.

What she’s saying is all well and good, but I’d be much more likely to take her comments seriously if I didn’t already know she’s spent over $200,000 on remaking her body.  It just goes to show that just because you’re in Hollywood, just because you’re a successful actress with a boytoy husband, just because you seem to have a happy marriage and beautiful children, doesn’t mean that you’ve got your head on straight when it comes to yourself.  She’s spent past interviews going on about ageism in Hollywood (true dat) and how once a woman hits a “certain age”, they don’t know what to do with her.  Yeah, you can’t have an ageosuction, Demi…everyone knows how old you are, no matter how much fat you have sucked out of your thighs.  And, unfortunately, the entertainment biz is notoriously youth-oriented…to its detriment, I’d say.

I hope she finally does look past the reflection, because age happens to the best of us.  Hush, your actions are speaking so loud that I can’t hear what you’re saying.

Good heavens.  I’ve seen some horrid cosmetic surgery in my day.  Ashlee Simpson, Britney Spears, Joan Rivers, Priscilla Presley.  But I do believe that this could just be one of the worst pieces of cosmetic surgery I’ve ever seen.

Joan Van Ark, star of 1980’s soapy drama Knot’s Landing, is sporting what appears to be either burn salve or an extremely bad reaction to a chemical peel at a charity event this past week.  I mean, this seriously looks literally painful.

It does seem in the past few years that she’s undergone some procedures, but at least in this earlier shot she didn’t look quite so cadaverous.  She looks kind of like Dina Lohan, dontchathink?

And in this old publicity shot from the 1980’s, it looks like she’s had a bit of tweaking done, but it was tastefully presented.

I hope that she just had an allergic reaction to a cosmetic or something (although that doesn’t explain the spiderlashes).  Why do people feel this need to surgically alter themselves to this extent?  Whatever happened to aging gracefully?  Did she think this would be good for her career?  Well, it did get her in the gossip pages this week…