Victoria Beckham plans to be the nice judge when it comes to critiquing contestants on American Idol — but she expects to trade some not-so-nice barbs with prickly judge Simon Cowell.

“I like that fact that’s he’s honest. I think he’s very funny,” Beckham told Ryan Seacrest on his KIIS-FM radio show Friday. “He has a very tongue-in-cheek British sense of humor, which I have too. I’m looking forward to a bit of banter. I hope he does give me a little bit of a hard time. I love that. I feed off of that.”

Beckham, 35, says she doesn’t know Cowell well, but has one very pointed memory of him. “He is the only man in the music industry who turned down the Spice Girls and said we would never work,” Beckham said with a laugh.

Asked if she plans follow in the footsteps of Paula Abdul, who’s always been the most kind and nurturing judge on the show, Beckman says, “I want to be nice to people. I know how it feels to stand there and be judged … I don’t want to shatter anybody’s dream, but at the same time there’s nothing wrong with constructive criticism.”

As for whether she feels guilty replacing Abdul, she says, “I don’t. I’m a spiritual person and I believe that you get back whet you put out there, and I hope she does something that is bigger and better …. There’s something great for her around the corner, I’m sure.”

So how should prospective contestants aim to please Posh Spice? “What I’m looking for [in an Idol winner] is a great singer and somebody who has that star quality. It’s about the whole package.”

One other quality the fashion-savvy star would like to see: a contestant who possesses “natural style.”

Beckham is currently in Denver, where she’s set to participate in the first round of auditions for the upcoming season of American Idol.

Source, Bauer-Griffin

Jessica Simpson may have been dumped by Tony Romo, but her family has no hard feelings.

“We like all our exes,” her mom, Tina, told E! News at a Gap event in Hollywood Thursday.

How’s Jessica handling the split, which happened on the eve of her 29th birthday in July?

“Jessica is just a really strong girl,” says Tina. “She has her stuff together. She really does. She’s really solid.

“I’m very proud of her,” Tina went on, adding that Jessica is currently “awesome…she’s doing very good.”

Tina says she’s been spending the summer with Jessica and Ashlee Simpson-Wentz “working, hanging out by the pool, enjoying the grandson.”

Bronx, 8 months, “is a sweetheart,” Tina says. “He’s so cute. And getting so big…I’m a proud grandmother!”

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Kara DioGuardi is still shocked that Paula Abdul has quit American Idol after eight seasons.

“I can’t get over it. I’m completely shocked,” she said on Ryan Seacrest’s KIIS-FM radio show Friday. “It’s such a loss for the show, such a loss for the contestants. She’s definitely the heart of the panel.”

“The kind of heart she treated the contestants with she treated me with last year,” said DioGuardi, who added that she was “scared” joining the show last season. “She was so kind to me and made me feel immediately like part of the panel.”

DioGuardi added that she hopes Abdul “will reconsider” her decision to leave.

“I’ve left her a lot of messages. I talked to her last week,” DioGuardi said. “I haven’t spoken to her this week.”

DioGuardi shot down speculation that she was hired last season as an insurance policy against Abdul in case she leaves.

“The way I’m understanding it is that it was her choice to leave,” DioGuardi said of Abdul. “I never was here to replace her. It would be impossible to replace Paula Abdul. She’s an incredible talent. She is somebody who helped make the show as big as it is. How could you ever replace that?”

“If anything, she was really somebody who helped me because it was awkward at times being the fourth person,” she added.

DioGuardi – who is in Denver Friday to begin auditions – said she is excited to return to the show alongside Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson for a second season, calling Idol “an incredible show.”

Said the new judge, “Last year, it was tough at times. Being the new kid, you get beat up a bit. I’m hoping this year that people are more accepting.”

On Thursday, Fox Entertainment Chairman Peter Rice said producers are currently looking for a fourth judge to replace Abdul. (Katy Perry and Victoria Beckham are among the guest judges who have signed on.)

Abdul – who left show because she reportedly she didn’t get her desired $20 million deal – isn’t sweating the fact that she is out of a job.

“At this point, there are so many wonderful things that are being offered to me,” Abdul told the Associated Press Thursday. “And I got to take a deep breath, sleep a little … and go through everything.”

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John Hughes made Molly Ringwald a teen star after casting her in his 1984 movie Sixteen Candles. After learning about the writer-director’s death on Thursday, Ringwald shared fond words about her frequent collaborator.

“I was stunned and incredibly sad to hear about the death of John Hughes,” Ringwald said in a statement. “He was and will always be such an important part of my life.”

“He will be missed – by me and by everyone that he has touched,” she added. “My heart and all my thoughts are with his family now.”

Ringwald, who now stars in The Secret Life of the American Teenager, also had leading roles in Hughes’s 1985 classic The Breakfast Club and 1986′s Pretty in Pink, which he wrote.

Another actor Hughes made famous, Matthew Broderick, who starred in 1986′s Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, also shared his condolences with the director’s family.

“I am truly shocked and saddened by the news about my old friend John Hughes,” Broderick said in a statement. “He was a wonderful, very talented guy and my heart goes out to his family.”

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Though their honeymoon in Bali was cut short by a bout of food poisoning, newlyweds Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan made sure to mark the occasion in a permanent way – with matching tattoos that spell out “side by side” in Balinese.

“It was a joint decision,” Tatum, 29, told People at a Los Angeles screening of G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. “We always wanted to get a tattoo of something together.”

But the two, who met while filming 2006′s Step Up, wanted their ink to be meaningful. “We weren’t going to do each other’s names,” Tatum said, laughing. “We wanted to do something symbolic.” So, the happy couple chose a phrase that they hold near to their hearts, and now, even closer to their skin.

“It was in one of our vows to each other,” the actor said, as his wife showed off her recently-inked left foot. “We took it from that.”

Source, Bauer-Griffin

Paula Abdul inspires men to fight over her, but not in the way you might think.

“American Idol” alum Constantine Maroulis, 33, got his butt kicked by an Abdul hater during Casio’s G-Shock party Wednesday night at Cipriani Wall Street.

The partygoer threw punches, pushed Maroulis to the ground and kicked him repeatedly before security guards stepped in. According to witnesses, fisticuffs erupted because Maroulis professed his desire for Abdul’s return to “Idol.” His attacker was more than happy to see her gone.

“It was hilarious! Constantine got into it with this guy who was probably 6 inches shorter and 60 pounds lighter,” laughs an observer. “The guy body-slammed him and punched him in the face and then just stood up, straightened his tie, and said, ‘B—ch, don’t you ever,’ before walking away.”

The attendee adds, “Security didn’t know what to make of this guy. He was so well-groomed in his suit, and he didn’t look like a threat at all. Constantine was so overwhelmed he just sat there on the floor for a few minutes.”

Later, the Tony nominee, who just signed for another year in the Broadway show “Rock of Ages,” tweeted about the incident.

“It broke up quick, didn’t even know him. Or throw one punch. I don’t mind a fight … but only when it’s fair and I’m looking!” wrote the star, adding, “I’m fine! Some drunk dude tackled me in the middle of the concert and jumped on me.”

Maybe hostility was in the air. While Maroulis’ fight transpired, performer Kanye West rapped about his anger over a March arrest for breaking a paparazzo’s camera. West sang, “I have to pay $100,000 to the photographer who said I hurt his arm, but I was just breaking them (bleeping) cameras, I wasn’t trying to do you no harm dude.” He added, “I’m not trying to stop you from getting paid at all, but I feel the pictures you take are trying to make the icons fall.”

West’s on-and-off gal pal Amber Rose, singer O’Neal McKnight, Ashanti and Russell Simmons were all on hand to catch the lyrics and the action.

Source, Bauer-Griffin

Daniel Baldwin and his wife Joanne welcomed a baby girl Friday morning, the couple tell People exclusively.

Finley Rae Martineau Baldwin was born at 9:35 a.m. at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. She weighed 7 lbs., 10 oz. and measured 20½”.

The new arrival joins older sister Avis Ann, who was born to the couple in January 2008 and who “is excited to meet her new little sister,” says Baldwin’s rep.

Joanne, a British former fashion model, met the Homicide: Life on the Street star, 48, during his stint in a Malibu rehab facility where she worked as a chef. They have been married for two years.

Baldwin, who recently appeared on I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here!, also has three children from three previous relationships: Atticus, 13, Alexandra, 18, and Kahlea, 25.

Source, Bauer-Griffin