Sideshow: Katie's getting married again

A salute to TV journo

Katie Couric

, 56, who became engaged to banker

John Molner

, 50, over the holiday weekend.

"Katie's calling it her labor of love," People editor Larry Hackett said on Good Morning America, announcing the news.

Couric was widowed in 1998 when her husband of nine years, attorney John Paul "Jay" Monahan, died of colon cancer. The couple had two children, recent college grad Ellie, 22, and Caroline, 17, a senior in high school.

Molner, head of mergers and acquisitions at Brown Brothers Harriman, proposed with what surely is a very impressive, large, yet tasteful rock at sunset on the beach in East Hampton, N.Y., says People.

Couric has a fun time courtin'. The couple are "having a great time," she told USA Today in May. "He's really funny and very successful in his own right. In a different line of work."

She added that Molner is "a little more age-appropriate," perhaps referring to ex-beau Brooks Perlin, who was 17 years her junior.

Filmmaker Clint Eastwood's estranged wife Dina says folks, especially gossipers, should lay off her husband.

"I don't like reading negative things about Clint," tweets the 48-year-old former Mrs. Eastwood & Company star. "He is a wonderful, good-natured, brilliant person. No matter what, I attest to that."

The couple recently confirmed they have separated after 17 years of marriage.

Kate Upton has been honored with a most grand prize. Not the Nobel, but it's close: Kate, 21, on Wednesday will be crowned model of the year at the Nicole Richie-hosted 10th Annual Style Awards in New York.

Kate tells Vanity Fair her entree into modeling wasn't all smooth. One agency told her, "You're too American, and everybody knows American women are lazy." Says Kate, "I was so offended."

And she tells Elle mag there is a dark side to landing the Sports Illustrated swimsuit cover (she got it two years in a row). Every guy she met went all pervy on her. "I'm not a toy; I'm a human," Kate says. "I'm not here to be used."

In a deep encounter session with MTV News, Miley Cyrus finally has opened up about the night she giant-foam-fingered her way into MTV Video Music Awards infamy.

The 20-year-old singer justifies her antics, which were as devoid of actual sensuality as Demi Moore's robotic '96 disaster Striptease, by insisting they are part of a grand tradition in Western art. "Madonna's done it. Britney [Spears has] done it," she says.

(As did legendary twerkers Caravaggio and Isadora Duncan, yo!)

"You're overthinking it," Miley says of the hype. "You're thinking about it more than I thought about it. . . . Like, I didn't even think about it 'cause that's just me."

Celebrity stylist and fashion designer Rachel Zoe, 42, and husband Rodger Berman have officially confirmed they're expecting their second child. . . . Princess Madeleine of Sweden, younger sister of Crown Princess Victoria and third in line to the throne, is expecting her first child with hub, New York banker Christopher O'Neill.

Simon Cowell's impending fatherhood won't impinge on his lifestyle as Ent-Biz's scowliest Darth Vader, the X Factor boss on Tuesday said on the British talk show Daybreak.

Cowell says his gal-pal Lauren Silverman will give birth just in time for the London premiere in March of his musical I Can't Sing! The X Factor Musical. "I've timed it," Cowell said. "I'm happy about it, I really am," he also said. "It's nothing to hide now, and the fact that I can talk about it publicly is great."

Anna Paquin, Stephen Moyer, and Alexander Skarsgård will soon join you on the unemployment line: HBO's vampirific blood-sex-and-more-blood-and-more-sex-and-even-more-sex-soaked drama True Blood will end after a 10-episode seventh season next summer. . . . Jeffrey Donovan and Gabrielle Anwar also are unemployed: The series finale of USA's Burn Notice is set to be telecast Sept. 12 at 9 p.m. . . . Kelly Ripa, 42, has a new hairdo but I won't describe it. It debuted Tuesday on the second-season premiere of Live With Kelly and Michael.