No Lion about it: 'Lion King' now Broadway's biggest grosser ever

The king of the Broadway jungle

You got Leo, the MGM lion (Ars Gratia Artis!). You got Bubbles, logo of the Detroit Lions. You got the Cowardly Lion of The Wizard of Oz. You got Kimba, and Clarence the Cross-Eyed Lion, and Kitty Kat (feline of the Addams Family). Now shove over for The Lion King!! The Broadway show, not the 1994 Disney flick. According to figures (unadjusted for inflation) released Monday, Lion padded past ThePhantom of the Opera last week to become Broadway's all-time top grosser, with about $854 million. It had a wild Easter/Passover weekend, inhaling $2 mil. Phantom, B-way's longest-running show ever, started in 1988 and Lion began roaring only in 1997. But Lion packs a bigger theater with more expensive tickets.

He might suspect what she might …

If "nothing is real," as John Lennon once sang, then everything is … reality TV! Take spurned, divorcing basketballer Kris Humphries, victim/victimizer/willing publicity harlot in his brief wedding to Kim Kardashian. KK's now dating (or is she, really?) rap monomaniac Kanye West, even seeing TheHunger Games with KW last Wednesday. (Was Wednesday really real?) Informed Anonymous Insider tells RadarOnline that Kris suspects Kim was never really faithful. (Unfaithful in an ersatz marriage? Is there a philosopher in the house?) In Kanye's track "Theraflu," he confesses to Kim lust, and she, generous lady, seems to be helping him with that. In their divorce war, Kris and Kim have said nothing publicly about each other. All lawyered up.

Perez Hilton now owns himself

In this crazy meta-world, you can be a celeb by covering celebs. Exhibitionist A: Perez Hilton, whose self-referential empire of tweets, blogs, and informants has catapulted him about, oh, two feet up into semi-proto-quasi-stardom. At the LOGO NewNowNext Awards on April 5, P-Hilt tore open his shirt on the red carpet to reveal ab fab abs. Fabled, gobsmacking abs. Abs to live and die for. Self-dubbed the Queen of All Media, P-Hilt has been on a public campaign to become unplump. Some rumors said he'd lost up to 80 pounds, even resorting to surgery. Lies, says P: It was diet and exercise. He owns his body now, he'll have you know: "I feel great!"

Dance and love and dance again

So Jennifer Lopez and bf Casper Smart do the sexy in her "Dance Again" vid. Normal thing: J-Lo plummets slowwwly into a heaving stew of naked-tending persons and pole-dances blindfolded. Fourth of July picnic stuff. Since it debuted last week on American Idol, the vid has drawn about 10 million YouTube views (although the tune hasn't dented the sales charts yet). Now Dan Gainor of the Culture and Media Institute (uh-oh) tells RadarOnline, "Jennifer Lopez's skanky new video shows how desperate she is to retain her fame despite her fading relevance." Note to Dan: Dude, you're just stoking the fire!

Noted in parsing

Cyndi Lauper, 58, will publish a memoir this fall, titled, imaginatively, Cyndi Lauper. … Miley Cyrus says she's not anorexic. Did we say she was? … Speaking of literary output, Cyndi lags somewhat behind Herman Wouk, 96, whose new novel, The Lawgiver, bows this fall. … "SideShow" favorite Anne Hathaway will be TB-riddled prostie Fantine in the film of Les Misérables. She's had to diet aggressively, and, waaah, chop off her lustrous sable locks. … Nicole Kidman is in talks, we hear, to star as Philadelphia's own Princess Grace of Monaco in the film, um, Grace of Monaco. It's about an 11-month stretch in which the doughty Grace headed off a coup. … We love it! Clint Eastwood is suing this furniture outfit called Evofurniture for calling two of their pieces "Clint" and the "Eastwood." So that was a subtle clue. … Despite what millions would prefer, Universal says it'll make a sequel to the 1988 film Twins. Titled Triplets, it'll star Danny DeVito and former politician Arnold Schwarzenegger. Who's the third? Eddie Murphy, rumors say!! Some call this icky. Oh, be quiet and have fun! Arnold's sure of one thing: Triplets is "real entertainment." The line in Vegas says he's absolutely right.

This article contains information from Inquirer wire services and websites. Contact "SideShow" at sideshow@phillynews.com.