Sideshow: Topless Kate in Italian mag

Despite a torrent of spleen - moral, ethical, aesthetic, and legal - pouring forth from the British royal family, Italian gossip mag Chi on Monday published a 26-page spread featuring topless photos of Britain's future queen -

Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge

(

Kate Middleton

to her friends). Taken by a paparazzo while the royal couple were on holiday in the south of France, the pics were published last week in France's Closer mag. Kate's hub,

Prince William

, has filed a lawsuit and a criminal complaint against the mag.

A French court says it will decide Tuesday whether to order an injunction halting further publication of the pics. (It'll be too late to stem the tide: Other publications, including an Irish gossip rag, already have reprinted some of the photos.)

Political scientists may be interested to learn that both Chi and Closer are part of the Mondadori publishing empire owned by Italy's former premier Silvio Berlusconi.

Fame is always good for business. It can't be topped. So it is with

Kate Middleton

. The New York Daily News says Amazon's fashion site, MyHabit.com, sold out, within an hour, its entire stock of the Prabal Gurung dress Kate wore last week in Singapore. The price was right, too: The site sold the $1,995 item for $599.

Angelina Jolie

is so famous, so bigger-than-life, such a mythic being that running into her would give your system a major shock.

So says comic actor and beauty Julie Bowen. "If I see Angelina Jolie, I have to look away," the Modern Family star tells Health mag. "I just feel like maybe she's not real. She's like a unicorn. It's like, 'There's Angelina Jolie. We're not going to seriously stand here and pretend it's not like seeing a yeti, right?' "

Bowen, 42, may not be a yeti, but like Jolie, she has kids. Three of 'em - Oliver, 5; and twins Gus and John, 3 - with husband Scott Phillips. She says she and the young'uns engage in very clean fun. "We have a lot of crazy dance parties in the shower," she says. "A dance party with three naked children and one fairly naked mother? There's simply nothing better."

British star

Keira Knightley

, 27, says

feminism

has become something akin to a dirty word. "I remember doing interviews, and people would ask, as if it was a joke, 'So you mean you are a feminist?' " Keira tells Vogue. "As though feminism couldn't be discussed unless we were making fun of it. I don't want to deny my femininity, but would I want to be a stay-at-home mother? No. On the other hand, you should be allowed to do that, as should men, without being sneered at." Keira's new pic,

Anna Karenina

, opens Nov. 16.

Mere hours after

American Idol

announced

Nicki Minaj

was joining

Mariah Carey

at the judges' table comes word that the two divas already are "at each other's throats." TMZ says the pair went at it Sunday during their very first taping.

"When Nicki started critiquing a contestant, Mariah would interrupt - not once, but many times," says TMZ. "Each time Mariah interrupted, Nicki fought back by loudly talking over Mariah." Oh, my!

An Idol insider tells TMZ the duo tried hard "to cover their disdain for each other," but it was too powerful to control!

TV star

Amanda Bynes

(Nickelodeon's

All That

and

The Amanda Show

) has had yet another run-in with cops. Bynes, 26, who already was facing two charges for hit-and-run and one for DUI, was cited for driving with a suspended license Sunday

in Burbank, Calif. Her car was impounded.

Bynes' uncle, Ronald Bynes, tells Celebuzz.com that she needs professional help. Unnamed sources tell TMZ that Bynes talks to herself. And she tells TMZ that her problems "are being blown way out of proportion."

In an ad for an ad for a movie, studio suits say a trailer for the

J.R.R. Tolkien

adaptation

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

(out Dec. 14), will premiere Wednesday. "I'm not a huge fan of fantasy for fantasy's sake," director

Peter Jackson

tells USA Today. "I like Tolkien's work because of the language, the cultures he wrote about - they're anchored in a very real, historical mythology that he created."

Tyler Perry

said Monday that he was canceling the rest of the "Madea Gets a Job" tour because it had been ruined by bootleggers and scalpers. . . .

Kim Kardashian

has found a way to warm her heart on nights

Kanye West

isn't around: She has adopted a teacup Persian kitten named

Mercy

. . . .

The Beatles

,

Elvis Presley

, and

Frank Sinatra

are among the 40 freshmen inductees of the American Pop Music Hall of Fame, which is set to open next year in Canonsburg, Pa., near Pittsburgh.