Madonna wants the media to leave Britney Spears alone.

"They need to step off," she told the "Yo on E!" satellite radio show. "For real ... Let's go save her."

Madonna, 49, said her daughter, Lourdes, 11, feels the same way.

"She knows Britney, (but) she doesn't really watch TV or read gossip stuff," the pop star said in the interview. "I think she sort of gets the drift of what's going on, and I think she feels very protective of Britney."

Madonna and husband Guy Ritchie have a son, Rocco, 7, and are raising a Malawian boy they want to adopt.

"He's the life of the party," she said of David, who she brought home from Africa in 2006. "He loves music, he's an amazing dancer. ... He's a character."

She said caring for David is no different from her raising her biological children: "I thought it was gonna be, but it feels the same to tell you the truth."

As for speculation that her marriage is on the rocks, Madonna said: "It is ridiculous. ... I don't pay much attention to it."

The singer's spokeswoman Liz Rosenberg recently dismissed media reports that the Ritchies have split up, saying they "remain happily married." Rosenberg said that Madonna and filmmaker Ritchie, 39, were "joyfully back together at home in London" after living in separate countries for work purposes.

Madonna, whose new album "Hard Candy" arrives April 29, told "Yo on E!" that she plans to spend the summer in New York, and that she might kick off a tour this fall.
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KATE BECKINSALE has vowed never to appear naked in a movie, after she was bullied at school when her actress mum stripped on TV. The episode traumatised Beckinsale - whose mother is veteran British TV star Judy Loe - and she is determined not to subject her nine-year-old daughter Lily to the same humiliation. She tells AOL Movies, "My mum was an actress, and she did a nude scene on television when I was about 9 or 10, and the crisis I had when everyone came to school the next day and told me they'd seen my mother naked just makes me kind of, you know ... I'm not in a big rush to do that to my child. "She's embarrassed enough that I'm an actress at all, without me being naked as well."
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STEVE Buscemi's role as ex-con mobster Tony Blundetto in "The Sopranos" has caused a major problem for the Coalition of Italian American Associations.

In February, Buscemi was a guest speaker at a dinner the Coalition held at the Columbus Citizens Foundation - dedicated to fostering appreciation for Italian-American heritage - on the Upper East Side. But Foundation president Louis Tallarini had objected prior to the dinner, saying Buscemi "portrayed a mafia lifestyle" in his "Sopranos" role - and now, he's banned the Coalition from holding its events there.

"Your invitation to Mr. Buscemi, an individual who has had numerous roles . . . as a mobster . . . was made without notification to any official" of the Foundation, Tallarini wrote to Coalition board member Dr. Joseph Scelsa after the event. "This invitation violated well-known foundation principles . . . You are well aware of the Board's historical opposition to the association of actors who portray gangland characters . . . It was disrespectful to the Foundation."

In a follow-up letter, Tallarini wrote that as of May 1, the Foundation will no longer host the Coalition's events, and asked the group to pay its balance of $9,276.

Scelsa defied Tallarini, arguing beforehand that Buscemi has an entire body of film work outside of "The Sopranos" and that he was chosen to speak because of his volunteer efforts at Ground Zero after 9/11. "It would be disrespectful to disinvite an invited guest," Scelsa said.

In a letter to the foundation written after the dinner, Scelsa wrote, "There was no mention of 'The Sopranos' by anyone at the monthly meeting."

Scelsa told Page Six, "I'm certainly not a fan of the show. It perpetuated a negative stereotype of Italians. But Steve is a great actor and a great human being. We've had our monthly meetings at the foundation for many, many years. When we had him, we introduced him as a great cinematic actor and a director.

"They wanted him to be disinvited, but we didn't do that. This is not about supporting a negative stereotype, this about the right to free speech." Neither the Columbus Citizens Foundation nor Buscemi's rep returned our calls for comment.
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If you see Kate Bosworth playing blackjack on a casino floor, rest assured she's not counting cards. Bosworth, who stars in "21" as an MIT math whiz, adept at beating Vegas casinos with a simple counting system, is actually mathematically challenged. "I will be the first to tell you every single person in this cast is awful at math," the beauty laughed to the Daily News at a Cinema Society screening of the gambling movie. "[Co-star] Jim [Sturgess] clearly had to know more math for his scenes. But no, I could never count cards," she emphatically stated.

Bosworth got on board with the project after reading "Bringing Down the House," by Ben Mezrich, which was later adapted for the movie. "I love the book. Clearly we had to change it a bit to film it; you have to put in the love story, which didn't exist, though the role that my character is loosely based on did get married to another person on the team, though they're divorced now," the screen siren said.

"The funny thing is, I did get to speak with this girl because I was so intrigued with their lives. But they were so intrigued with ours as actors. We took turns saying, ‘Tell me what it's like being a movie star,' and "Tell me what it was like for you in Vegas!'" Bosworth said at the Calvin Klein-sponsored after party.

Bosworth also shared that "the cast got close [during filming.] We all stayed in Vegas for five weeks and at night sometimes we'd go out and gamble. This is the type of film that lives or dies by the chemistry of the cast. Fortunately everyone adored each other." But the only people who actually won big at the tables were the film's producers. "They would go and bet astronomical amounts of money! I couldn't even watch due to the anxiety factor of watching," she giggled.

Also at the Mercer Kitchen bash was Clive Owen, who told us, "I'm not a betting man," when asked how much he's ever won gambling. "Not my style," the Brit said with a sly grin. Meanwhile, Mary Kate Olsen hunkered down in the corner, chain-smoking, and stopping only long enough to have a conversation with Sturgess.
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ey y'all, I'm knocked up, so pay up!

Pregnant tween star Jamie Lynn Spears and baby daddy Casey Aldridge have registered at Babies R Us, asking well-wishers to fulfill their every baby need.

The happy couple - otherwise known as Registry No. 70391760 from Kentwood, La. - thanked gift-givers in advance.

"Thank you for supporting us during this special time," the young, unmarried couple wrote in their online registry.

The 16-year-old sister of pop wreck Britney Spears registered at a store in Baton Rouge and did some shopping of her own.

It's been widely reported that Jamie Lynn and Aldridge, 18, are planning to tie the knot.

She appeared to be sporting an engagement ring yesterday as they sashayed through store aisles wearing a T-shirt that read: "The Rumors Are True."

Spears, star of Nickelodeon's "Zoey 101," is due in July.
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He plays an FBI agent on TV, but Keith Carradine took center stage Friday in a real-life federal wiretapping case against snooper-for-the-stars Anthony Pellicano.

Carradine, 58, described for jurors a ham-fisted harassment campaign allegedly conducted by the private investigator on behalf of the star's ex-wife, Sandra Carradine.

"I received a call on my cell phone [from] a gentleman with an odd, sort of fake accent who offered to help me with my divorce," said Carradine, an Oscar-winning songwriter and Broadway veteran who plays Special Agent Frank Lundy on Showtime's "Dexter."

"I said I was an upstanding person with nothing to hide and please do not call me."

He described service problems with his phone, allegedly because of a wiretap, and an attempted break-in of his Airstream trailer in 2001. He said the harassment also targeted his then-girlfriend and now-wife, Hayley DuMond, 33.

He said DuMond was "followed rather aggressively in her car," had her tires slashed and endured strange calls after midnight at relatives' homes.

When Pellicano, who is representing himself, asked the actor whether Sandra Carradine was a "vindictive person," Carradine answered "yes."

Pellicano, 63, is facing hundreds of years in prison on racketeering charges. He is accused of wiretapping phones, bribing police and telephone workers and intimidating the rivals of his deep-pocketed clients.

The indictment states Pellicano used a computer program to intercept Carradine's calls. Sandra Carradine has pleaded guilty to perjury in the case, admitting she lied to a grand jury to cover up Pellicano's tapping of her ex-husband's phone calls.

Suzan Hughes, the pillow-lipped ex-wife of Herbalife founder Mark Hughes, also took the stand Friday and admitted she paid Pellicano $150,000 to confirm her then-husband's suspected infidelity and help with her divorce.

She described listening to a wiretapped call of her husband in Pellicano's so-called "war room," and got emotional when prosecutors played a separate call that had Pellicano attributing Mark Hughes' 2000 death to piles of Viagra pills.

"I didn't do anything wrong," the former Miss Petite USA said tearfully outside court.

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