Playboy Mansion

QUOTE "As far as collaborating with Michael is concerned, I would like to leave well enough alone. There was great success with 'Scream' and I'm just fine with that. " - Janet Jackson, when asked if she and big brother would team up again. The "Material Girl" now has the most perfect accessory to go in her collection. Madonna gave birth to a baby boy on Friday, one month earlier than the given date. She named the lad Rocco Ritchie. (We hope the little boys in the schoolyard will have mercy on him.)

Legends, they say, die hard. In the case of Wilt Chamberlain, we can only imagine. After all, by his own account,he was the world's greatest lover. Others will praise the glory of his athletic career. They'll quote his NBA statistics: 31,419 points, nearly 24,000 rebounds. They'll remember how he once scored 100 points in a single game. But there is one other number, and it is the one that everyone remembers with awe: 20,000. It is the number of women he once claimed he had made love to since he was a high schooler at Overbrook.

TALK ABOUT corporate synergy. Playboy gives "Hot in Herre" artist Nelly a camera to take nekkid model shots for its April issue and Hugh Hefner and nekkid Playboy bunnies then show up in Nelly's new video "Work It," with Justin Timberlake. The vid was shot at the Playboy mansion and this one has too much flesh for even flesh-happy MTV. If you want to see what the London Sun is billing as the uncut world exclusive, check out www.thesun.co.uk/article/ 0,,2003080005-2003081405,,00.

Turf Man is at it again. "We still have a lot of work to do; it's coming down to the wire," said George Toma, who is charged with creating the ideal playing field for tomorrow's Super Bowl game, between the Buffalo Bills and the Dallas Cowboys at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif. Two weeks ago, Toma salvaged the turf at San Francisco's Candlestick Park, transforming it from slop to grass in time for the NFC championship game. The Rose Bowl is nowhere as messy as Candlestick, but Toma says this job is more stressful because thousands of people tromp on the field daily.

Harry Potter may be all about fantasy, but publishing is all about business. (Well, it's about reading, too, of course, but first things first.) Harry's creator J.K. Rowling and publisher Scholastic Inc. have sued the New York Daily News, which published excerpts Wednesday from the much-anticipated Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, for copyright infringement, among other things. As everyone surely knows by now, the book does not go on sale until one minute past midnight tonight.

Hugh Hefner, the longtime playboy of the western world, is getting married for a second time this weekend. The 63-year-old founder of Playboy magazine will wed 1988 Playmate of the Year Kimberley Conrad, 26, Saturday afternoon at the Playboy Mansion in exclusive Holmby Hills outside Los Angeles. About 450 guests will then party the night away beneath a huge white tent alongside the mansion's exotic grotto. "It was the kind of thing I felt quite certain would never happen in my life," Hefner said.

Looks like Colombian chanteuse Shakira will be leaving NBC's The Voice . Hints as light as grand pianos have been falling from her and from various network reps. She finally confirmed it yesterday, citing her musical career and the stresses on her baby, Milan , born to her and her bf, footballer Gerard Piqué , in January. Christina Aguilera will take that reported $12 million to $17 million (!!), thanks, and step in for Shakira for Season 5 in September - and possibly Cee Lo Green , replacing Usher ?

Hugh Hefner is getting married again - to the same runaway bride who left him five days before the altar the last time. TMZ.com reports that Hef, 86, is engaged for the second time to Crystal Harris , 26, and the pair will wed at the Playboy Mansion in California on New Year's Eve. What's a 60-year age difference when it's true love? TMZ sources say the couple has worked out the problems that nixed their first attempt at a wedding and they couldn't be happier. But that 60-year age difference?

I AM VERY pleased with the cover of the Daily News (Sept. 4) that I saw. I and every other man in the Delaware Valley wish that we could have been "Joe Sixpack" for that trip to the holy land of mankind. I am sure that you will get negative feedback for having such a cover, but, in reality, many women wish they were in Playboy, and many men, like "Joe Sixpack," have wished and still wish to be a guest at Hugh Hefner's Playboy Mansion. I am just happy there was a picture of two beautiful women and "Joe Sixpack" on the cover - and not a picture of Jaws.

The mind reels. Kendra Wilkinson, the former Playboy poser married to an ex-Eagle, agreed to trade places with Kate Gosselin and care for a brood of eight kids? That's right, according to ABC. Those are the two moms pulling the season-debut switcheroo on Celebrity Wife Swap at 8 p.m. Feb. 26. The Philly-born Gosselin, a single mom, would sure seem to be getting the better of the deal, since Wilkinson has just one 3-year-old boy, and a husband around the house as well - former Philadelphia Eagles receiver Hank Baskett.