Sideshow | Keith Richards snorted dad's ashes

In a moving, melancholy paean to his father,

Bert Richards

, preeminent rock-and-roll axman

Keith Richards

tells British music mag NME that, in addition to the various and sundry illegal drugs he has ingested, smoked, shot up or rubbed on, he once snorted his

father

- with a cocaine chaser.

"He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn't have cared," the 63-year-old Rolling Stone said. (Talk about breathing in your heritage.) "It went down pretty well, and I'm still alive."

Inexplicably, the rock-and-roll wild man who, local legend has it, undergoes regular blood transfusions as a way to revitalize and clean out his system, says he does not want kids to follow in his footsteps! He said he happened to have lived the life he happened to have ended up living, including his voluminous drug travails, for no grand reason, but just "because that was the way I did it." He said naifs have been silly enough to "think it's a way of life." Deep.

Radar Online reports that

Paula Zahn

is divorcing her real-estate developer hubby,

Richard Cohen

, to make room for her new man,

Paul Fribourg

, who, as the CEO of the Conti Group, is probably an equally rich and powerful dude. One imagines Paula is in love with Fribourg far more than with Cohen (if any remains for Richard). That's a big assumption; perhaps she detests both but finds Fribourg more convenient to be with?

We will never know each other.

Howard Rubenstein, a rep for both lovebirds, has confirmed that "they are planning to divorce."

But, he said, no details will be released, "in the interest of their children." (Zahn and Cohen have three children; Fribourg on his own is a father of four.)

She's scary, as if a shock had sent a shudder down your spine and snatched you into a momentary, adrenaline-fueled frisson of panic - and (it'll burst out of your chest, explode your heart!) excitement. Former

Scary Spice

,

Melanie Brown

, has gone from creating ordinary, yet somehow transcendent music to creating life itself: Yesterday the autobiographer (

Catch a Fire

) gave birth to a girl, who weighed in at 8 pounds, 4 ounces at a Santa Monica hospital. "No name has been decided on as yet," a statement said. The baby, it said "is purely known as Baby Brown!" (

Huh? Purely

?)

Now the scary part. Mel, who has another girl, 8-year-old Phoenix Chi, from her 15-month marriage to Jimmy Gulzar, says the dad is Eddie Murphy, whose wife, Nicole, filed for divorce in '05. (This party is really a workshop about procreation: Eddie and Nicole have five kids.)

There's "absolutely no question that Eddie is the father," Mel said. Eddie was dismissive: He's not so sure, he said.

Lately he's been sporting that pouty, "why'd you hurt me" look that his girly-girl fans love so much. It means

Justin Timberlake

is angry.

It means he'll sometimes kind of push a girl around a bit, or say bad words repeatedly.

So why this galloping, charging stallion of rage   from the "Cry Me a River" singer? Yours truly.

Or, to be precise, the entire bleepin' gossip industry.

"I despise what they do," Justin, 26, tells Details mag. "They create soap operas out of people's lives. . . . It's a spin game, and I choose not to take part in it."

The former Mouseketeer said, "I would never say anything bad about anyone. I love a lot of those people." Those people most definitely includes Cameron Diaz, who was the mint on Justin's pillows for more than three years until their love affair ended in January.

Ryan Gosling

, the freshly anointed acting wunderkind, breathlessly said at a press junket this weekend for his new flick,

Fracture

, that his girlfriend,

Rachel McAdams

, is simply awestruck and terrific. "She's kind," Ryan said "She doesn't need any help from me. She's inspired me to do so much as well."

Ryan's sweet words are in response to a barrage of compliments Rachel paid him in an Elle interview. Rachel, who costarred with her beau in The Notebook, said he's a brilliant actor who "never does the same thing twice. He's very brave."

Meanwhile Ryan piles on more of it: Rachel is "the most discerning person I've ever met," he said. "Oh . . . yeah. She looks stunning! Absolutely - yeah!"

It has been reported that Ryan and Rachel might be dating.

Guess this is how

buzz

(inordinate palaver about the world-historical importance of a soon-to-be released slice of pop-cult product), gets started:

Morgan Spurlock

's docu

Where in the World . . .

is

the

hottest, most relevant, politically charged film, since you know - hmm -

Reds

, or maybe

Birth of a Nation

.

It doesn't matter that no one who has been recommending the movie has ever seen it! According to the New York Post, the rumor grinder started with word that Spurlock, who has kept the docu super-secret, showed a 15-minute slice of it to Harvey Weinstein, who immediately gave him "a multimillion deal" for the flick.

Million$ for a documentary?!

Whoa! This movie will be smokin' hot.

. . . and it's about time.

Paul McCartney's estranged wife, who, most Brits seem to forget, is a human being, told E! Entertainment TV's E! News that she is sick of how she is portrayed - as a gold-digging harlot - by the British press, which generally fawns over Paul.

"All I did was to fall in love with someone madly, and I'm constantly being vilified in the press for it," said Mills, 39, currently one of the surviving contestants on ABC's Dancing With the Stars.