Sideshow: Rosie suffers heart attack

Rosie O'Donnell got a scary reminder of her mortality last week when she had a heart attack at home. She calls it "a miracle" that she survived.

O'Donnell revealed the attack in verse form on her blog Monday: "i am happy to be alive/last week i had a heart attack." After feeling an ache in her chest and becoming clammy, then very hot and throwing up, she decided to check her symptoms online: "i had many of them/but really? - i thought - naaaa."

Then she did something that she credits with saving her life: "i took some bayer aspirin/thank god/saved by a tv commercial/literally." She didn't call 911, but did go to a cardiologist the next day. The doc sent her to the hospital, where Rosie acquired a stent. An artery was 99 percent blocked. Now, O'Donnell wants to make sure other women act more quickly than she did: "know the symptoms ladies/listen to the voice inside . . . CALL 911."

"It's awkward because I still love him," Rihanna told Oprah Winfrey on Sunday of running into her ex-bf Chris Brown, who pleaded guilty two years ago to assaulting her in a reportedly vicious confrontation. "My stomach drops and I have to maintain this poker face." R denies reports the warblers are back together. She's single, she maintained, while Brown has paired off with model Karrueche Tran.

But the love remains. Rihanna, in tears, admitted, "I think he was the love of my life," even while describing the assault as "embarrassing, humiliating, hurtful."

R has upset some fans by saying she has forgiven Brown. Not Oprah, who told her, "You forgiving him does not mean that you are weak or that you are a victim."

Can't wait to find out who will be joining Kelly Ripa on the syndicated weekday talk show Live!? We at Sideshow have hardly been able to sleep or eat wondering who would pull the sword from the stone and be anointed the Regis Philbin permanent fill-in. Now, more than nine months after the reign of Regis reached an end, a new host has been found. But those teases won't tell us who it is until Sept. 4, the day after Queen Kelly kicks off the new season on her own. We do know the guests on the Day of the Great Announcement will include actress Claire Danes and American Idol's Phillip Phillips.

The parade of substitute Regises, 59 in all, stretches back to last November when Rege rode off into the sunset and has included Neil Patrick Harris, Taye Diggs, Daniel Radcliffe, Alec Baldwin, Jonah Hill, and Michael Strahan.

Oscar-winning Boys Don't Cry star Hilary Swank and beau of five years John Campisi are a couple no more, People says. . . . An update on the motorcycle accident that sent Wynonna Judd's husband Michael Scott "Cactus" Moser to the hospital on Saturday: Doctors had to amputate his left leg above the knee.

Blond rapper Nicki Minaj will become an American Idol judge next season, joining Mariah Carey, Us Weekly says.

What's good for Nicki is not so good for Randy Jackson, the last of the original AI judicial troika, along with Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell. Jackson will move to a "mentoring role" on the show.

With Minaj, AI will get two judges in one, if she brings along her outlier alter ego Roman Zolanski, showcased on this year's Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded album. Her ascendancy is sure to spice up Idol.

- Dan DeLuca