Sideshow: Diana gossip (thanks, Mum)

Princess Diana

's butler unleashed shock and awe on British propriety yesterday when he testified that Diana's mother called the princess a "whore" because she had dated Muslim men.

Paul Burrell

, who has already cashed in on Diana's life with

two

best-selling tell-alls, testified at the inquest into her death that in June '97, Diana's mum,

Frances Shand Kydd

, berated her for "'messing around with [expletive] Muslim men,' " and said her daughter was "disgraceful." Shand Kydd died in 2004. Burrell told officials of Diana's romance with Pakistani surgeon

Hasnat Khan

, which ended in July '97. Diana, he said, called Khan her "soul mate" and wanted to marry him.

Burrell testified that Diana, who began dating

Dodi Fayed

in July, saw him as a "rebound" boyfriend and had no intention of marrying him. "I need marriage like a bad rash," she told Burrell. Dodi, Diana and driver

Henri Paul

died in a Paris car crash just a month later in August.Brit a no-show? Yes & no

Achieving the impossible, deposed pop princess and beleaguered old soul

Britney Spears

showed up at the courthouse yesterday for a scheduled hearing in her custody struggles against

Kevin Federline

- but she was a no-show in the courtroom.

The hearing, which began at 9:30 a.m., L.A. time, was to reassess whether Britney, who has been stripped of all her visitation rights with her two sons, should regain them.

By the time the day's strange doings were over, the court commissioner had decided to continue blocking visitation. Another hearing was scheduled for Feb. 19.

The closed hearing addressed the four-hour custody standoff at Brit's house on Jan. 3, during which she refused to give one of the boys back to K-Fed. That night ended with Brit's forced hospitalization in a locked ward.

Brit, not legally required to attend, had been encouraged by her lawyers to testify. (Federline did show up in court with his hair piled into a goofy Mohawk, and did testify.)

When she showed up outside the courthouse later in the afternoon, Brit looked harassed and nervous. Agence France-Presse reported that she was outta there within minutes but that she stopped briefly at a nearby church, which the celeb Web site TMZ.com identifed as the Little Brown Church, scene of the wedding of

Ronald

and

Nancy Reagan

.

Brit entered the church, followed by a procession of paparazzi, then quickly emerged, got back in her vehicle and was driven away. Then, she went home.

Oscar-winning screenwriter

Roger Avary

, best known for his work on

Quentin Tarantino

's freak show

Pulp Fiction

and the

Angelina Jolie

mess

Beowulf,

was arrested Sunday and charged with vehicular manslaughter after being involved in a fatal crash 80 miles outside L.A. in Ventura County.

The Ventura County Sheriff's Department said Avary, 42, was driving the car when he had a one-vehicle collision. (They did not give details of the crash.) Passenger

Andreas Zini

, 34, who was visiting from Italy, was pinned inside the car. He died several hours after the crash at Ventura County Medical Center. The second passenger, Avary's wife,

Gretchen

, 40, was thrown from the car and is listed in stable condition.

Avary, who was charged with manslaughter and driving under the influence, was booked and released on $50,000 bail.

TV personality

Gary Collins

, who hosted the Miss America Pageant and TV's

Hour Magazine

in the '80s, checked into the Glendale, Calif., City Jail yesterday to serve a four-day sentence in his DUI case.

Collins, 69, who pleaded guilty to two charges Dec. 6, has opted to pay an $85 daily fee to be in the slightly cushier Glendale, rather than the overcrowded Los Angeles County jail.

Collins must also serve four years' probation and pay a $500 fine.

Tom Cruise

's wife did the morning talk shows yesterday to hype her flick

Mad Money

. On

Good Morning America

, she shared a singular adventure that she,

Tom

and their princess,

Suri

, had at the FAO Schwarz store in Manhattan on Sunday night.

"We were . . . running around, eating ice cream and playing with all of the toys," said the

Batman Begins

star. "And Tom and I were playing with a lot of the toys ourselves. It's fun for adults. You get carried away."

What a delightful romp it must have been.

Katie, 29, said Suri, who'll be 21 months old on Friday, is "talking all the time. So she's saying, 'Who's that? Who's that?' "

Katie also shared her feelings from that fateful day when she married her man: " . . . the doors opened and I saw Tom, I was just locked in. I mean, it was so magical. It was perfect."

England newspaper The Mail on Sunday reports that

J.K. Rowling

's seventh and final Harry Potter story,

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

, is so chock-full of plot and adventure and mood and character - not to mention character arcs - that its film adaptation will consist of two full-length movies. Incidentally, Universal studios will make gazillions more with two flicks.

It was opening day for

Wesley Snipes

yesterday: The martial-arts expert and thesp was at U.S. Federal Court in Ocala, Fla., for his fraud and conspiracy trial.

Snipes, star of the three-film vampire saga,

Blade

, is accused of trying to fraudulently get back $11 mil in paid 1996 and 1997 taxes and for having his film companies stop withholding taxes from employees.

Snipes tried to move the trial from the central Florida town of Ocala, arguing it was racist, but failed. The Associated Press reports that the pool of 37 potential jurors present yesterday for jury selection was predominantly white.

If he's convicted, Snipes could get up to 16 years in jail.