It's never too late to ruin a year!

Happy New Year, everybody! I hope '07 finds you tanned, rested and ready. While the rest of us were popping champagne and watching Dick Clark's ball drop, some celebrities were taking this last opportunity to make 2006 "the year of The Big Mistake" (or, in some cases, just reinforce the horror of aught-six). When Michael Jackson smooching James Brown's corpse is the most normal celebrity sight from a holiday weekend, you know something is seriously awry.

(Photos snagged from ohnotheydidnt.)

Well, maybe it's almost normal to see mortifying photos of Lindsay Lohan. This one is an instant classic: the expression is dazed, the chin is blobby, the outfit is ... well, honestly, I think it's an actual costume from the third season of Dallas. But this is how our girl rang in the new year:

The foundation garment crisis clearly continues. Speaking of which, Britney Spears greeted '07 by collapsing -- oh, wait! No, she didn't! According to her manager, she just fell asleep less than an hour after counting down to midnight. While looking like this:

What do you think? Chemically altered, or just undead? Maybe both? Speaking of which... (the segues just write themselves here) Mickey Rourke was photographed on Thursday night looking uncannily like the late great Red Buttons.

I keep getting stuck on the hair when I try to pick out the worst thing about those pictures. The rubbery lips and strange wideness of his face are awful, of course, but I can't help but think that if only Rourke had stopped somewhere for a decent color, cut and blow-dry, he wouldn't look quite so alarming. Buttoning his shirt would have been a wise course of action, too.

Still. He used to look like this. He'd have a better version of Bruce Willis's face right now if he'd just left it alone, not pursued the boxing or the plastic surgery or the general passive-aggressive destruction of his looks. You can still pick out a few of his former features in his current mess of a face, but the cheekbones are a little too angular now, the soft sadness of his eyes has been obliterated by a brow lift and that stratospheric hairline is making me wonder if botox or straight-up nerve damage is behind the waxiness of his forehead.

But while Rourke's problems can be... well, ameliorated, anyway, by a trip to a good salon, some bad decisions can only be remedied by a legal team. It looked like Kate Moss might have made one of those decisions over the weekend by actually marrying walking test tube Pete Doherty in Phuket, Thailand. (First the tsunami, now the first couple of heroin. That poor island.)

Moss's publicist immediately quashed rumors of a wedding, saying that the two had merely pledged "mutual devotion" to each other during a candlelit Buddhist ceremony. (I hope a monk was on hand to make sure Doherty wasn't cooking up over his candle.) But such comfort is only a stopgap measure, as the two are apparently planning a genuine legal wedding on the 18th in England.

Now, usually, this is where I wail, "What is she thinking?! Kate, for God's sake, kick him to the curb!" But Moss and Doherty have been together for so long, breaking up and reuniting, that I can't escape the simple conclusion that this is, in fact, what she wants. I'm somewhat comforted by the fact that her daughter and his son are being raised by the pair's exes, and I hope that they don't combine their DNA anytime soon.

Because if they did, based on this photo, their offspring would likely resemble a sweaty, boozy raccoon.

Hopefully, this will put whatever minor indiscretions you might have committed over the weekend into some kind of perspective. Happy New Year, y'alls!

Comments

[sudiegirl]

Oh my - nasty pictures, all. I'm glad I missed MJ kissing James Brown's casket - did they have to clean it with bleach afterward?

[SueBee]

Mickey freaks me out with his hair/shirt/bubbie combo. Did he not realize TransAmerica had been cast, filmed and is now at Blockbuster. Reference: http://img.timeinc.net/ew/dynamic/imgs/051111/12847__transamerica_l.jpg He's gonna regret those implants.

Kate & Pete are disturbing in their uncanny resemblence to each other. Perhaps it is less disturbing to wake in a haze and peer into your own face. Perhaps.
HNY '007 Honey! I can't wait!

[weirsdo]

Good thing I did not read this on a queasy stomach. Thank you.