The Vatican has announced that French First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy was not allowed to join her husband, French Prime Minister Nicholas Sarkozy, on his trip to visit Pope Benedict XVI. Shortly before Mr. Sarkozy’s departure to see the Roman Catholic leader, the French ambassador received a note from the Vatican that icily read, “Carla Sarkozy is not welcome in the Vatican.”

According to a new authorized biography of France’s First Lady Carla Bruni, American First Lady Michelle Obama thinks life in the White House “is hell.” And honestly, can you blame her?

Presumably not a great deal was lost in translation here. A government-run Iran newspaper has called France’s first lady Carla Bruni a prostitute after she signed a petition calling for the release of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani. Ashtiani is accused of “cheating on her husband and then helping to kill him” and is set to be stoned to death.

Newsweek editor Jonathan Alter reveals in his new book, The Promise: President Obama, Year One, that, while visiting the United States, France’s first lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, shared some sex-talk with U.S First Lady Michelle Obama. Bruni-Sarkozy reportedly told Obama that she and her husband, French President Nicolas Sarkozy once made an unnamed head of state wait while they had sex. Oooh La La!

Erin Andrews, the ESPN Sportscaster, was the victim of a peephole video last month when someone rigged a small camera to record her changing in her hotel room. As a guy who is retro-fitting a prosthetic eye to be a video camera, I have followed the debate about video ethics and privacy closely. Because my video camera eye (a working field model is nearly done! Stand by!) is a bit creepy I get a lot of criticism for potentially invading people’s privacy.

Vanity Fair has released its 2009 Best-Dressed List. Does anybody care? It wasn’t that long ago that these sorts of lists, from publications like Vanity Fair, were powerful measures of a star’s clout, or their clout-to-be as the case may have been. Not so much anymore. We’re so saturated by Hollywood images these days it’s a bit like reading last year’s magazine.