Nicole Kidman is happy to appear naked on screen if the role demands it.

The Australian is quoted as saying: "Honestly, is nudity onscreen that big a deal? I think you say you're going to do something for a film because you believe in it artistically and you don't censor yourself emotionally."

Kidman, who stripped off in movies such as Dead Calm and Eyes Wide Shut, will reportedly bare her flesh again in new film Fur: An Imaginary Portrait Of Diane Arbus.

Further explaining her stance on screen nudity, Kidman added: "If the love scenes and the nudity is a necessity for the piece and it’s not exploitative then it doesn’t weigh that heavily on me."

Movie star John Travolta got in touch with his feminine side yesterday for his latest role.

And the star reckons the pain of squeezing into women's undies is just like being in jail.

Travolta, 52, gears up in padding and high heels to play mum Edna Turnblad in Hairspray.

He said taking off his girlie gear felt like "coming out of a prison."

Travolta added: "How do women ever endure stockings and high heels? The discomfort level was astonishing."

Which musician was so miffed about missing out on a gong, he tried to pilfer one of his rival's awards? Rather embarrassingly, a Q Awards bigwig caught him in mid-snaffle. And the rocker received a thorough ticking off, worthy of a naughty schoolboy, in front of his stunned musical peers. The only thing he ended up taking home was a bruised ego and gnawed fists.

Despite her very public battle with Tom Cruise, when Brooke Shields met up with his fiancée, Katie Holmes, at a charity event in Pacific Palisades, Calif., Oct. 29, the two "were so lovely to each other," an onlooker reveals.

Perhaps that's because they go way back – to the September premiere of Grey's Anatomy, at least, which they watched together in Shields's living room. (After Cruise slammed Shields for using medication to treat her postpartum depression, he famously apologized in August.)

Coincidentally, the two new moms gave birth – Shields, 41, to her second daughter, Grier, and Holmes, 27, to daughter Suri – on the same day, April 18, and at the same L.A. hospital.

The two are "absolutely" friends, Shields told Access Hollywood at the Pacific Palisades event, which benefited Hands of Change, an employment and mentoring program for women. "You never know how life is going to bring people together."

U.S. singer and heartthrob Justin Timberlake says he feels no pressure about hosting Thursday's MTV Europe Music Awards, one of the industry's biggest nights outside the United States.

"The pressure's not on me, it's on the performers," he told reporters at a news conference. "I'll try to make MTV proud."

Timberlake will host the Copenhagen show, which features performances by alternative rockers Muse, rapper Diddy, retro rockers The Killers and R&B/hip hop singer Nelly Furtado.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Madonna, Gnarls Barkley, Nelly Furtado and the Black Eyed Peas are among the nominees for the awards.

"I'm looking forward to seeing Muse, I really like (their latest album) 'Black Holes and Revelations'," Timberlake said.

Timberlake follows 2005 host Sacha Baron Cohen, who adopted his politically incorrect persona of Kazakh television reporter Borat for the evening.

Cohen, who has just released a movie featuring Borat traveling across the United States, has angered many in the Central Asian state with his portrayal of Kazakhstan as a nation of drunks, racists and misogynists.

"I thought he did a good job. You have to bear with Borat -- he doesn't understand a lot of culture outside of Kazakhstan," Timberlake joked.

Apparently, the father of adopted 13-month-old David Banda from Malawi (Yohane Banda) turned down financial aid from Madonna:

On David’s father turning down financial aid: “When I met (Yohane), I said I would be happy to … to bring (David) back to your village and help you financially raise him. And he said no … I think he truly felt in his heart of hearts that – and who knows if he was telling me the truth – that he would have a better life with me. So, when he said no, that was my sign that it was my responsibility to look after him.”

On doing things over again if she had to: “I mean, if you would have asked me a week ago when I was in…the depths of my depression, and just feeling so sad about the state of the world and how negative everybody was, I probably would have said no. But if you ask me today, I would say yes.”

On raising David as a Christian, since that’s how he’s been raised: “I believe in Jesus and I study Kabbalah. So, I don’t see why he can’t too. The essence of the Kabbalah is the teachings of Jesus. You know, love your neighbor as yourself. If David decides he wants to be a Christian, then so be it. Studying Kabbalah doesn’t mean you can’t be a Christian or a Buddhist or a Muslim or a Jew or whatever.”

On David’s personality: “He’s got a terrible temper. He’s very flirtatious. And he’s hysterically funny.”

Rapper Ice-T once gained fame talking about killing cops. Now the controversy over his latest album has led him to compare himself to a peace-loving John Lennon.

Surrounded by leopard-print cushions in his penthouse apartment outside New York, the 48-year-old rapper defended a racy new album cover showing him lying naked in bed, his groin area covered by his wife's bare legs.

She wears only a flesh-colored G-string with her buttocks in center frame, and a silver gun lies on the nightstand.

"It's not pornography, it's sexy," he told Reuters of the cover of "Gangsta Rap," his first album in seven years, released in the United States on Tuesday.

Some music stores will carry a sticker concealing the cover images of the rapper, whose real name is Tracy Marrow, and his wife Nicole "Coco" Marrow, 27, an exotic model.

"It's part John Lennon and
Yoko Ono. It was art when they did it and it's where everybody wants to be -- laid up in bed," he said, referring to the couple who held "bed-ins" for peace and appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone with a naked Lennon wrapped around his spouse.

Dressed in a black baseball cap, silver jewelry and white sneakers and facing framed photos of Coco posing in string bikinis on motorbikes and flashy cars, Ice-T said he would never have posed "with my butt laying there naked by myself."

"I'm not going to flatter myself. But this is my wife, it's not a model and it's not fabricated," he said. "If you snuck into our bedroom tomorrow morning you could get a picture just like that."

Coco said she loved the photo shoot because "it's not just some other guy I am posing with."

NO MORE COP KILLER

Ice-T is used to controversy. Born in New Jersey and raised in Los Angeles, he joined a gang before releasing his debut album more than 20 years ago and gaining a reputation for politically charged lyrics.

His single "Cop Killer," which included the lyrics "I'm about to bust some shots off, I'm about to dust some cops off," was cut from an album that was re-released without it.

Ice-T said the song dealt with "the vibe at the time" of backlashes against police brutality in Los Angeles.

"The old Ice-T was like, 'I will kill everybody,' but the new Ice-T is kinda like, 'by the way, I'm not gonna kill you guys,"' he said. "Now it's a different type of anger and aggression."

His latest lyrics comment on the gangsta rap genre he helped create, including the line: "It's about guns and drugs and bitches and ho's," from the album's title song.

"I'm not saying it's good or bad, I'm just saying that is what gangsta rap is about," he said.

The new album is still politically charged but concentrates on sex more than before. "Girls that are into hip hop (like) to hear their man talk dirty," he said.

He has spent the past several years playing a detective in the television series "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit" and also stars in his own reality television series teaching prep school kids how to be real rappers.

Kate Bosworth is proving particularly sensitive to questions about her weight, going so far as to cancel a planned Australian interview after the topic was raised.

Bosworth's US management insisted on vetting questions for an interview with Bosworth after the actor had agreed to take part in an S exclusive ahead of her arrival in Sydney this week.

The interview was cancelled after Bosworth's management took umbrage at a question, apparently about the media attention surrounding Bosworth's weight.

The actor is said to be particularly sensitive to the issue after concerns were raised about her diminishing frame. Her weight loss has been a continuing subject of scrutiny for gossip magazines in the US and Australia.

All questions for the actor, who starred as Lois Lane in Superman Returns, are being vetted.

Bosworth, who has a strong affection for Sydney after filming the Superman sequel here, is returning to Australia to take part in Melbourne Cup festivities.