Beyoncé Knowles has broken her silence about Kanye West's outraged outburst at the MTV Video Music Awards. Kanye stormed the stage at the Sept. 13 extravaganza to protest Taylor Swift's win over Beyoncé in the Best Female Video.

"Well, I knew his intentions, and I knew he was standing up for art," Beyoncé tells Gayle King, editor of Oprah's mag, O. "And he told me before, when they said the nominees, he's like, 'You have this award.' " She tells King that Kanye was shocked when he heard the winner's name. "When he walked on the stage, I was, like, 'No, no, no!' "

Guy: Madge is 'retarded,' but I love her

A year after his ex, Madonna, said he was "emotionally retarded," Brit filmmaker Guy Ritchie, 41, tells Esquire that Madge is, like, totally retarded, yet lovable. "Here you go: I still love her," Ritchie says. "But she's retarded, too." (What is he, like, 11 years old?)

Do you smell a reconciliation?

Tidbits 'n' pieces

Dexter: Early Cuts, an animated Web series based on Showtime's Dexter, will premiere Oct. 25 on www.sho.com.

Dina Lohan, sometime-actor Lindsay Lohan's mum, has unveiled her very own line of footwear, called Shoe-Han, the New York Post says.

Taylor Swift - who, in minutes, sold out all her 59 concert dates this year - will kick off the second leg of her gargantuan Fearless tour Feb. 4 in Brisbane, Australia.

Don't worry, Aerosmith isn't dead, says guitarist Joe Perry, who this week released his fifth solo album, Have Guitar, Will Travel.

Jawbox, the D.C.-based, '90s hard-core heroes, will perform Dec. 8 for the first time in 12 years on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon.

Secretariat, the thoroughbred who won the Triple Crown in '73, will be immortalized in a new film starring Diane Lane and John Malkovich.

'Phantom': The Sequel

Andrew Lloyd Webber yesterday announced that his new musical, Love Never Dies, a follow-up to his megaselling The Phantom of the Opera, will premiere in March in London and make its way to Broadway in November 2010.

Webber said the show takes place a decade after the Phantom story ends.

"I don't regard this as a sequel," he said. "It's a stand-alone piece."

A ring is a ring is a ring . . .

In Touch Weekly says perennial bachelor George Clooney, 48, has presented his new paramour, Italian TV chick Elisabetta Canalis, with a ring! Alas, an anon source says, it's not an engagement ring. But, surely, it's a sign they're getting serious? Yes, I'm confident it's possibly a promise-I'll-propose preengagement ring.

Paul Shaffer: I said no to 'Seinfeld'

David Letterman's big-grin band-leader Paul Shaffer could have been a sitcom star! Shaffer tells USA Today that Jerry Seinfeld offered him the role of George on Seinfeld. But PS has no regrets: "My own parents used to tell me I wouldn't have been as good as [Jason Alexander] was." And no, Shaffer, who wrote the gay anthem "It's Raining Men," is not gay. The musician's memoir, We'll Be Here for the Rest of Our Lives, was released Tuesday.

Letterman-gate: Belzer weighs in

Speaking of celeb books, Homicide star Richard Belzer, whose novel I Am Not A Psychic! also came out Tuesday, tells PBS's Tavis Smiley he empathizes with David Letterman. "You could see his anguish" over his extramarital affair with his former employee Stephanie Birkitt when he fessed up to it on TV, Belzer says. "It wasn't a bright thing to do. But, you know, that's humanity. He did it, you know, before Harry was born. . . . It's not condonable, but it's reparable."

Bertinelli talks food, love, selfhood

"I've realized I'm more important than food is. I love a big slice of pizza. But I love myself more." So says America's foremost philosopher and diet-product salesperson, Valerie Bertinelli.

Val tells Ladies' Home Journal that being thin is not a physical condition, but an existential state of being: "Being thin is about changing the way you think about yourself. It's about saying you deserve to be healthy."

Streisand on top of the heap

Barbra Streisand, 67, this week scored her ninth No. 1 album with her jazz CD Love Is the Answer, which sold 180,415. Babs beat out that other great American diva, Mariah Carey, 39, whose Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel sold 167,912 units to land at No. 3.

Yogi prepares Levi for soft-porn debut

Alaska's proudest son, Levi Johnston, 19, is hard at work - three hours a day, six days a week - sculpting his awesome bod under fitness Magi and former Mr. Alaska competitor Marvin Jones. LJ famously broke up with former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's daughter, Bristol, after she was delivered of his baby, Tripp. LJ is preparing for the greatest challenge of his life: a Playgirl photo spread. He also stars in a recent TV ad for nuts (pistachios, to be exact).

A treat for galactic hitchhikers

USA Today says author Eoin Colfer's And Another Thing . . ., the first authorized sequel to Douglas Adams' classic sci-fi/comedy series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, will be out Monday, which happens to be the 30th anniversary of the publication of Adams' first Guide.

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Contact "Side Show" at sideshow@phillynews.com.

This column contains information from Inquirer wire services.