Sideshow | Beyond secrets of cooking

The delectable

Nigella Lawson

, the most lushly curvaceous British cooking-show host ever to grace TV, gives an NC-17 interview to British Esquire, in which she shares her recipe for bliss - of the sexual kind.

The 47-year-old, who wed her second hubby, the 64-year-old gazillionaire art patron Charles Saatchi in '03, says she prefers men who are hairy all over.

She said dressing up for lovemaking is de rigueur.

"Stockings never fail to make you feel sexy," says Nigella, who admitted she sometimes sports stockings and a garter belt "with nothing [else] but a pair of shoes in bed."

But contrary to the fantasies of millions of naughty Brit lads who weren't spared the rod at their posh private schools, Nigella won't spank you if you've been bad. The exquisitely cultured cook said she has no desire to play dominatrix. "I'd be hopeless, continually asking, 'Oh, dear, does that hurt? I'm so sorry,' " she said.

David Hasselhoff

, who is still in the middle of a custody negotiation with his ex,

Pamela Bach

, was hospitalized overnight Tuesday after the admitted alcoholic had a "brief relapse," his rep tells TMZ.com. The celeb Web site reports that The Hoff went on a booze bender and then checked himself into Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in L.A. for alcohol poisoning.

The rep said that The Hoff "immediately recognized the importance of addressing [the relapse] with the assistance of his doctors."

TMZ.com says the actor checked out of the hospital yesterday and is doing just fine. The Hoff is due back in mediation in his custody case today.

Bobby Brown

, by all accounts a healthy, 38-year-old man, spent Tuesday night in a hospital in L.A.'s San Fernando Valley after suffering a mild heart attack, his Atlanta-based attorney,

Phaedra Parks

, announced yesterday.

Parks said doctors "attributed [the attack] to stress and diet." She said Brown, who was released from the hospital yesterday, "is in great spirits; he's doing very well," she said. "He's speaking with family members."

Meanwhile, Esquire's homeland edition has paid

Charlize Theron

the most sublime tribute since the Nobel Prize, naming her the mag's Sexiest Woman Alive. It's a grave responsibility: Ms. Theron follows in the footsteps of previous honorees

Jessica Biel

,

Angelina Jolie

and

Scarlett Johansson

.

Theron said Reindeer Games, in which she costarred opposite Ben Affleck was the worst movie she's made. "That was a bad, bad, bad movie," she said. "But . . . I got to work with [legendary director] John Frankenheimer."

Ben

really opens up in two interviews, one posted yesterday on

» READ MORE: www.Parade.com

, the other this weekend in Parade mag.

"I grew up in a home environment where I wasn't getting esteem for anything I did," the articulate thesp says in the online chat, immediately eliciting sympathy from readers.

Ben said his life, such as it has become, came together when he met Matt Damon when he was 8 and Matt was 10. It was with Matt's help that Ben stayed on the thespian path.

Fame, Ben says in the magazine piece, is a dangerous gift. Fame changed his life forever the day he and Matt won an Oscar for writing Good Will Hunting.

"I went from being totally unknown to being part of this giant publicity machine," said Ben, who is giving interviews to publicize his flick Gone Baby Gone. "In about six months" after the Oscars, "I lost myself and turned into a guy, who, in retrospect I don't like very much." (You sure that guy went away?)

The fairy-tale marriage between bright youngsters

Reese Witherspoon

, 31, and

Ryan Phillippe

, 33, was officially and legally over as of Oct. 5, says CelebTV.com, which cites court documents. The couple's seven-year marriage produced 8-year-old daughter

Ava

and 3-year-old son

Deacon

.

Blackout

, the eagerly awaited new CD from

Britney Spears

, will be out Oct. 30, two weeks earlier than its original release date. Reason?

You

! Because of your curiosity, impatience and lack of respect for the sanctity of Brit's intellectual (

ha!

) property rights, too many tracks from the CD have been leaked online.

Kim Raver

of Fox's hit show

24

gave birth to

Leo Kipling Boyer

on Tuesday. Raver and her French filmmaker hubby,

Manu Boyer

, also have a 5-year-old son,

Luke West

.

Once upon a time there was

News

and there was

Entertainment

. And even though News and Entertainment were polite to each other, they never partied together.

Now, the two are all mixed together in a sticky mess: Soulfully sensitive front man Michael Stipe's alterna legends R.E.M. plans to promote its upcoming CD by debuting the new song, "Until the Day Is Done," today - not on MTV or VH1, but on CNN's hard-hitting news show, Anderson Cooper 360.

The song also will be featured on CNN's four-hour docu about the environment, Planet in Peril, which will feature star entertainer Anderson Cooper. Stipes, an expert on environmental policy and enviro-jounalism, said, "Cooper and his team have done an amazing job capturing global eco-devastation."

Us Weekly yesterday was, like, "Indeed, Us has confirmed from multiple sources that [

Jennifer

]

Lopez

is about four months pregnant with her first child," thus supposedly laying to rest weeks of malingering questions about J.Lo's reproductive state. J.Lo hasn't confirmed.

Stevie Wonder

, who is scheduled to perform at the Borgata in Atlantic City Oct. 27 and 28, will hit the Wachovia Center in Philly on Nov. 8. Tix cost $45-$95 and go on sale Saturday at 10 a.m. Info: 800-298-4200 or

» READ MORE: www.ComcastTIX.com

.