Sideshow: Voted beautiful and hated

It's not the glamour, the golden hair, or the long gams that make her special, insists Gwyneth Paltrow, 40, who has been anointed People mag's Most Beautiful Woman. It's her role as a normal mum to Apple, 8, and Moses, 7.

"Around the house, I'm in jeans and a T-shirt. I don't really wear makeup," she says. Even hub Chris Martin finds it odd to see her in full glam gear, since he's so at home with seeing her "baggy shorts and frizzy hair."

Says Gwyn, "He'll make a joke about it. If I've gotten fully dressed up, he'll be like, 'Oh, wow! You're Gwyneth Paltrow!' " Jennifer Lawrence, Kelly Rowland, Drew Barrymore, and Kerry Washington also made the list.

Gwyn won another honor last week, when Star mag named her the Most Hated Celebrity in Hollywood.

What's the best way to talk your kids out of doing something stupid? Threaten to embarrass them in public by doing it yourself. That's how President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama dissuaded their daughters, Malia, 14, and Sasha, 11, from getting tattoos. "What we've said to the girls is that, 'If you guys ever decide to get a tattoo, then Mommy and me will get the exact same tattoo, in the same place, and we'll go on YouTube and show it off as a family tattoo,' " the president told NBC's Savannah Guthrie Wednesday on Today. "Our thinking is that might dissuade them from thinking . . . 'That's a good way to rebel.' "

Folks in Alexandria, Va., order more books, magazines, and newspapers in print and digital from Amazon.com per capita than any other city in America, the retailer says in its annual list of the 20 best-read cities with more than 100,000 residents. My town, your town, Philadelphia doesn't make the list.

Knoxville, Tenn.; Miami; Cambridge, Mass.; and Orlando, Fla., round out the top five. Pittsburgh made it. It's at No. 10. Not Philly, though. Not us.

Does Fox really plan to fire American Idol judge Mariah Carey - and enthrone Jennifer Lopez in her place? The Hollywood Reporter says Fox took steps to get rid of Carey, leading her people to threaten legal action. Fox reps say it's not true. The Reporter insists the entire judges' panel    may be axed at season's end.

Paramore, whose self-titled LP captured the top spot on the Billboard album charts last week, fell this week to No. 12. It's replaced at No. 1 by Illinois punk-poppers Fall Out Boy's salvific record, Save Rock and Roll, selling 154,000 copies in its debut week, says Nielsen SoundScan. Cleveland hip-hopster Kid Cudi's Indicud is at No. 2 with 136,000. Justin Timberlake's The 20/20 Experience sold 76,000 for No. 3.

Ben Affleck is the latest celeb to sign up for the Global Poverty Project's Live Below the Line, a social-awareness project that asks affluent Americans to live on $1.50 a day for five days. More than 1.4 billion people worldwide subsist on less than that. Hugh Jackman signed up in '11. Other recent joiners include Josh Groban and Tom Hiddleston, says EW.com. Info: www.livebelowtheline.com.

Mad Men leading man Jon Hamm will host the 2013 ESPY Awards, live on ESPN on July 17. . . . Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, who on Sunday had an emergency hernia operation ("my Dr . . . had to push my intestines back thru the tear in my abdomen. Kinda romantic," he tweeted) is feeling better. "Surgery a success," he tweets. "Superman is on the mend." . . . Analysts say Jaden Smith, 14, was embarrassed like any regular teenager when dad Will Smith gave him a paternal kiss on the red carpet in Cancún, Mexico, where they're promoting After Earth. Jaden transcends mere teenagehood. . . . Bachelor hero Sean Lowe, a self-described born-again virgin, did not keep his vow to abstain from sex until his wedding night with Catherine Giudici. So claim two Unnamed Sources in Life & Style Weekly. What should you believe? I can't tell you. . . . How I Met Your Mother's Jason Segel has signed with Random House to write a series of middle-grade kids' books set in a haunted town. . . . TMZ says Rihanna spent $8,000 on several dancers Saturday at a Miami strip club. Homework for her next stage routine? . . . Justin Bieber, 19, has two new tats on his left arm: a tiger up by his biceps and an angel above his wrist. . . . Robert Todd Harrell's lawyer says the 3 Doors Down bassist checked into rehab after he was charged with vehicular homicide by intoxication for allegedly causing a fatal car crash in a Nashville suburb last weekend.