The beautiful Reese Witherspoon shares will Elle Magazine that she has been reading Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book, Outliers, which attempts to explain why some people gain unusual success. (Love Gladwell, btw) Witherspoon was, she says, “struck by the idea that to be a master at anything, you have to have 10,000 hours of practice at it. And that is what you accumulate over a lifetime. And I started when I was 14, working and working and working.”

On her divorce: “Very humiliating and very isolating…But, by the way, if it’s not painful, maybe it wasn’t the right decision to marry to begin with. Those are the appropriate emotions. When people get in your face and say, ‘This will pass,’ you think, Are they crazy? I’m never gonna feel any better than I feel right this minute and nothing’s ever gonna make sense again. And I still have moments where I’m like, Nothings ever gonna make sense again.”

On dealing with the pain that stems from divorce: “You see a lot of people play this blame game. Blame, blame, blame. You know? And it’s a really easy thing to do, and I’m certainly guilty of it. [You have to] look at yourself and go, ‘What part of this do I need to own? Which part of this is my responsibility? And that’s the painful work that you have to go through to hopefully get some real life knowledge out of it.”

On boyfriend, Jake Gyllenhaal: “He’s fabulous. He really is a fantastic guy. Unfortunately, he’s not in the movie, so we can’t really talk about him.”

On being a young mother: “When I first had Ava, I couldn’t afford [help]. And it was so hard. I was out in Los Angeles, living [away from my family]. I really didn’t have any friends. And I had a baby,” she says, laughing. “No one else who was 22 had a baby. I couldn’t go out.”

A tight circle of girlfriends  became her “salvation,” she says. “That’s always been the center of my life, female friendships. I’ll drop anything for a friend.” “It’s hard having kids. It’s hard having a job. It’s hard having a relationship–for anybody.”

On her reported Type A personality: “I don’t think I’m a control freak. I think I’m just fearful. I operate from a lot of fear, like, of things being lost or forgotten or neglected. Losing the spiritual rather than the physical. It’s so funny to me that somehow I’ve been portrayed as a very, like, closed-off or uptight person. I’m very open.”

On the paparazzi: “Fascination is gonna die off. I honestly know it. But it’s just like I keep waiting and waiting, and then it’s just more tabloid magazines, and it keeps going. I don’t take a shower everyday. I don’t put on makeup everyday. I wear a lot of sunglasses, in case you noticed.”

On not being diet obsessed: “I’m made of cookies after the holidays. Everything inside me is made of sugar and flour and a little red wine–a lot of red wine.”

Read the full article here.

Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), Nicole Kidman is a busy mom to  mom to Isabella, 16, and Connor, 13 (her children with ex-husband Tom Cruise), and now Sunday Rose Kidman Urban, five months. As one of Glamour Magazine’s Women of the Year 2008, Kidman shares:

GLAMOUR: Important things first: Who does Sunday Rose look like, you or Keith?
NICOLE KIDMAN: Keith! It’s fine by me, having a little Keith-ette. When he goes away, I can look at her and see him.

GLAMOUR: You’re almost swooning! Are you happier now than you’ve ever been?
NK: Yes. But “happy” isn’t an all-encompassing-enough word. I’m in a place of gratitude and humility. I don’t take any of it for granted. I touch wood every day. The journey of life—we all go through it: You have love, you lose love, you find new love. To have love again is a beautiful thing.

GLAMOUR: Are you more in touch with your needs now?
NK: Yes. I’ve given a lot to my work, and I’m not willing to give as much to that anymore. At this time in my life, I want to be giving to my relationships. And out of that, whatever work you do prospers because you have more to give. [Pauses.] There’s something very primal about giving birth. It puts you in a state of being very raw.

GLAMOUR: What do you mean?
NK: I can’t bear to be separated from Sunday Rose. That’s why I haven’t yet gotten a daytime nanny, but at some stage I probably will have one.

GLAMOUR: I have a feeling that this gratitude, and what you’ve learned about gaining closeness through surviving painful experiences, has something to do with your work with UNIFEM.
NK: The accumulation of experience gives you a debt in terms of compassion. I am very fortunate, and I feel dedicated to giving back to other women. Wherever I am now, I make sure I visit a women’s shelter. But I don’t want to do it in a frivolous way.

GLAMOUR: What has been the most touching experience?
NK: The way those women [in the shelter in Kosovo] told their stories—with such dignity, yet their lives were so ravaged. They’d been beaten, raped, ostracized. And they were so grateful to just have somebody to share their stories with.

43-year-old Estée Lauder beauty, Elizabeth Hurley shared with Red Magazine that she is planning to develop her own range of low-fat organic food products and an accompanying cook book.

In the July edition, Hurley shares, “I’ve just made an arrangement with a very good organic food producer and we’re going to do some products together.”  The products will include ingredients sourced from her 400-acre farm in Gloucestershire. The food and receipes will be all but fat free.

Some will be store cupboard essentials, she explained, but went on: “What I really, really want to do is pre-packaged meals. Fabulous versions that are delicious, healthy, not too expensive and very low in fat. So, that’s my big dream, because there’s a massive hole in the market for that.”

The cookery book will contain recipes she has “adapted over the years” to all but remove the fat content, she added.

Hurley tells People Magazine that she believes her low-fat organic products may help reduce the risk of breast cancer.

“I think we know now that many issues with women’s health can be linked back to their diet,” she says. “We’ve been saying for a long time that many breast cancer specialists recommend sticking to as low-fat a diet as possible, which all has to do with how estrogen is stored in the body.”

She also emphasized the benefits of low-fat milk and other organic products.

“For a long time we’ve been telling women to try and follow a low-fat diet and try and switch from a high-fat milk to a zero-fat milk. Now we genuinely believe if any of even the zero fat milk is crammed full of antibiotics and hormones it can be very detrimental to your health.”

Looking good demands a healthy lifestyle, she explained. “When you’re under 30 and, arguably, even when you’re under 35, many people can eat a lot, drink a lot, go out late and kind of look pretty fab when they get up. But now, forget it. You have to eat less, go to bed early, have almost no alcohol, just to look halfway decent. You either do it or give in and, obviously, we’re still fighting on the beaches.”

The model and actress has left her London home for good to escape the attentions of the paparazzi, which left her “semi-agoraphobic”. She now resides full-time in Barnsley, near Cirencester, with Arun Nayar, her Indian-born husband, and Damian, her six-year-old son by US film producer Steve Bing.

“I go to Waitrose four times a week. No-one stares or says anything. I’m completely ignored and it couldn’t be nicer,” she said.

Hurley raises livestock on her farm, including 15 calves, 34 piglets and 50 lambs, and is currently hand-rearing one of the piglets. “I have to swaddle it, like a baby, lie it backwards and feed it with a bottle. It’s absolutely divine.”

Despite her attachment to the animals, she has no qualms about turning them into tomorrow’s dinner. “I think, if you were being cruel to animals, then the thought of eating them would be horrific. But our animals have the most fantastic, lovely lives farm animals could possibly have. I feel fine about it.”

Source: Red/People/Eforu

The Women sweetheart Meg Ryan, graces the cover of In Style this months sharing insight into her messy divorce from Dennis Quaid  in 2001 and the joys of motherhood.

Up until the last year, 46-year-old Ryan hadn’t been working much. “I’ve been traveling,” she shared. She adopted her second child, Daisy True, from China in 2006 and spent a lot of time with her and teenage son Jack.

Her divorce from Quaid in 2001 was the catalyst for this downshifting of her public life and her work life.  She began an affair in 2000 with Russell Crowe, her co-star in Proof of Life, as her nine-year marriage to  Quaid was falling apart. “It was a great story,” she says. “But what wasn’t in the story was the reality of my marriage…” And what was the reality? After a pause, Ryan says quietly, “Dennis was not faithful to me for a long time, and that was very painful…”

A blessing in disguise.  “It all happened, really, like it needed to happen.”

More than two and a half years ago, she brought home her daughter, Daisy, who is now 3, from China. … “As mysterious and magical as it is to have a baby you gave birth to, I have that exact same thing with Daisy,” says Ryan. “I feel like we made some agreement, long ago and far away, to meet in the way we did.” Ryan says she never felt as if she was rescuing her daughter. “It wasn’t that. I just saw that face and I knew we were just related. It taught me a lot about any expectations you have in life. Just toss them away. Throw them out.”

Source: InStyle / LA Times

Our favorite model mom, Heidi Klum and Seal (45)  were spotted with their kids enjoying a blissful day at Disneyland yesterday (September 2).

Klum and Seal to be having a marvelous time with Leni (4), Henry (3 on September 12), and Johan (1.5), enjoying both the Dumbo and Teacup rides together in Fantasyland.

Henry is pictured taking a break in the Maclaren Techno Stroller while Leni enjoys a bird’s eye view from Seal’s shoulders.

It looks like it was a hot day in Los Angeles as Klum is photographed spraying the hot-day-essential Disneyland fan/sprayer on the teacups.

Next month, Seal will be heading over to the UK for a performance at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the THISDAY Africa Rising Festival in London, England on October 14th.

THISDAY is set to revolutionise the way awareness is raised for African issues through the annual Thisday Festival. This year’s festival with the theme ‘Africa Rising’ will focus on finding “sustainable solutions” rather than the “problems” facing Africa.

Following the overwhelming success of the festival, now in its third year, Nigerian media mogul Nduka Obaigbena is taking his brain-child cross-continent with scheduled events in Abuja, July 11, Lagos, July 13, Washington DC, August 1, and London, October 14. The world-class festival is set to project positive images of Africa by showcasing the renaissance of Africa’s music, fashion and the arts.

Seal will join Christina Aguilera on the bill, who will be giving her first major concert performance since giving birth to her baby Max.

Africa Rising will also feature stunning catwalk shows from top African and international designers, including Chris Aire,  world famous jeweler to stars such as Halle Berry and Denzel Washington. Alongside Ozwald Boetang internationally acclaimed designer, famous for his bespoke suits worn by the likes of Will Smith, Lawrence Fishburne and Jamie Fox. These amazing collections will be modeled by the best in the business including Supermodels Naomi Campbell, Alek Wek, Tyson Beckford, Oluchi and Liya Kebede.

Source: GossipGirls

Halle Berry was spotted out spending the day with her adorable daughter Nahla Ariela Aubry (6 months) on Saturday afternoon (August 30).

Mommy and daughter looked radiant as they enjoyed a fun-filled day at the Los Angeles Zoo.

Grandma,  Judy Berry, and a security team joined in on the fun.

Nahla means honeybee in Arabic. Her model Daddy, Gabriel Aubry was not present.

Berry is seen pushing Nahla in the choice celebrity stroller, the Orbit Infant System in mocha.

In related news, Halle will be answering calls for the Stand Up To Cancer telethon, which is scheduled for September 5th. The live fund- and awareness-raising television special that will air simultaneously on ABC, NBC and CBS.

More than 60 A-list celebrities will participate including Jessica Alba,  Sheryl Crow, Jennifer Aniston, Lance Armstrong, Hilary Swank, Charlize Theron, Kirsten Dunst, Scarlett Johansson and Salma Hayek.

Source: GossipGirls