Sideshow: Lindsay Lohan tackles 'Today,' eyes 'Saturday Night Live'

Lindsay Lohan's P.R. rehab continues apace with a sweet coup: LiLo on Thursday chatted on no less a forum than Today, a preamble to an even bigger score - hosting Saturday Night Live this weekend. Much heart, truth, sorrow, and joy poured forth over Today cohost Matt Lauer.

"I still need to go through the process of proving myself," LiLo told Matt, "you know, with SNL, being on time [for rehearsals], being, you know, keeping my . . . stuff together."

LiLo is working through legal issues raised by DUI arrests from more than four years ago, an albatross she nurtured with her drinkin' and druggin' until it grew to gigantenormous proportions. She was a woman rent asunder by inner demons. "I wasn't as comfortable with myself then. I think it was a fear factor that I had about what was really going on. And, you know, I had to get that wake-up call," she said.

Awake and sober, LiLo is tackling the Being of being, Elizabeth Taylor, in a coming Lifetime TV biopic. (It's only Lifetime, ahem, but . . .) LiLo's dead proud: "I'm really honored. And I will not let anyone down, especially myself."

(They have elections in Canada, too.) The world went mad Thursday on the occasion of teen trillionaire-artist Justin Bieber's 18th birthday. So many are the well-wishers that their comments are being collected at www.happybirthdayjustinbieber.com

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Justin got a sweet present Thursday on The Ellen DeGeneres Show when Ellen surprised him with a Fisker Karma electric/gasoline hybrid luxury sports car. ($95,900 for the basic model, $109,850 with all the trimmings.) This kid gets everything!

"I did." That's Zac Efron confirming reports he dropped a condom on the red carpet at the premiere of his new pic, The Lorax. It fell out when he checked for something in his pocket.

"I never really had a pocket-checking policy prior to going on the red carpet before, but now we fully instated one," the actor told Today on Thursday. Hey kid, keep it in your wallet.

Billy Crystal has drawn fire from all and sundry for doing a Sammy Davis Jr. impression in blackface at the Oscars. But not from Davis' daughter, Tracey Davis, who says her dad would have loved the skit.

"I am 100 percent certain my father is smiling," Davis tells the Hollywood Reporter. "Billy previously played my father [on Saturday Night Live] when he was alive, and my father gave Billy his full blessing."

Tracey, who cowrote, with Delores Barclay, the memoir Sammy Davis Jr.: My Father, says Crystal and her dad understood each other.

"I know the mutual love, respect, and admiration that you had for each other," she says, addressing Crystal, "and for his kids, Jeff, Mark, and I. . . . Thank you."

Seems all those obituaries about the demise of the movie theater were premature: Movie-ticket sales are up 18 percent in the first two months of 2012 compared with the same period last year, says USA Today, while film attendance is up 20 percent over 2011.

Country warbler Taylor Swift knows how to steal hearts: The Reading native and Berks County resident made Camden County teen Kevin McGuire's day when she agreed to take the Sterling Regional High School student to the Country Music Awards on April 1 in Las Vegas.

But if the tabs are right, Swift, 22, has cast her spell on an older guy, 24-year-old NFL megastar Tim Tebow. Swift, who has previously swift-boated A-list celeb hunks John Mayer, Joe Jonas, and Jake Gyllenhaal, was spotted sharing an intimate meal with Tebow Monday at Toscanova in Los Angeles' Century City, celeb news blog ClevverTV and the N.Y. Daily News report.

 A source tells ClevverTV "they may have been with their agents." Oh. Well, what about reports Swift was seen flirting with the Denver Broncos QB at an Oscar party Sunday?

Are they dating? What we do know is that Tebow takes his Christian beliefs seriously and has said he's saving himself for marriage.

Kate Middleton (Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge) on Thursday had her very first outing with grandmother-in-law Queen Elizabeth II without Kate's dashing hub, Prince William, to mediate.

The duo made it a girls' afternoon out, taking along HRH QEII's daughter-in-law, Camilla Duchess of Cornwall, for an afternoon of tea and chatter at the newly renovated restaurant in famed London shop Fortnum & Mason.

The unprecedented visit, part of a series of events celebrating the queen's Diamond Jubilee (60 years on the throne), had the British media in a frenzy. It was apparently that huge a thing.

"I always say there's a difference between cooked food and McDonald's," says Brit-born, American-based R&B stylist Estelle, who this week released her new album, All of Me. "Your mom's homemade dinner - you enjoy this more than you enjoy the fast food that comes along and goes, and I strive to make homemade dinner every time I put out an album."