Chew on This

Scarlett Johansson is rumored to give Ryan Reynolds an oral present for his birthday...and it’s so not what you're thinking! Plus, Joaquin Phoenix has a new honey, and why are Jake and Reese so suddenly cozy for the cameras? And who's to blame for the Iggy fiasco?

Things are, like, totally heating up between Ryan Reynolds and Scarlett Johansson, and we’re not just saying so because the buxom blonde recently hit Canuckland with Ry to meet the parentals. Fraternizing with the fam is one thing, but now. This simply has become a supercreepy canoodling biz.  See, Scar’s gone and given Ryan a piece of…herself? We’re not talking nooky, either. Read on…

Ryan’s B-day was Tuesday, and last weekend, Scar-doll threw the slinky Smokin’ Aces studster an early bash at Chateau Marmont. How very nice. Can you guess what terribly unique prezzie S.J. picked to gift Ry with? A full-body massage, with each of David Beckham's bod-guards present (just like Becks does), just to make sure everything gets kneaded properly? A walk-on in Johansson Svengali Woody Allen's next slobbering outing? Oh, never mind, there’s no way you’ll ever guess, so we’ll just spill: one of her pearly whites. Yep, you read right.

“She’d just had her wisdom teeth removed, so she had one dipped in gold and strung on a necklace for him,” says Desk Ouch!, who ran to us with the goss, practically hyperventilating with the nitrous-oxide-laced looniness. Nasty. Who do these two think they are, Angelina and Billy Bob or something?

What’s next? For Scar’s birthday, Nov. 22 (she’s a rebel Sag, love it!), will Ry have one of his turds bronzed and put in a little, or big, Cartier box? 'Cause heaven knows it ain’t gonna be a ring, not with these two heart-crushers.

Publicist P.S.: Scarlett’s press rep says the va-va-voomer wasn’t able to throw her b-f a pah-tay, as she’s been outta town. When we pressed, saying our sources insisted the toothy soiree was an early B-day bash, the repper replied, "She gave him a gift this weekend in private. There was no one else there." Hmmm. Thought they were traveling? Also, no confirmation on the gold-and-enamel special. Plus, no further comment on the earlier celebratory do, and I really think this is quite bloody enough on the matter, don't you?

Expressing his affection far more traditionally these days is fellow October birthday boy Joaquin Phoenix. The 37,000-feet-high Cupid scuttlebutt is that Joaq, who turns 34 on Sunday, is seeing a 21-year-old (female) brunette babe. Like 'em malleable, do you, Joaq? J.P. recently flew his rumored ladylove out to accompany him on a press tour for We Own the Night. Wonder if we’ll see said outta-town sweetheart pop up in paparazzi pics anytime soon?

Oh! Oh! And speaking of recently snapped duos, Jake Gyllenhaal and Reese Witherspoon were getting all friendly in front of photogs while in Rome promoting Rendition, 'course. Interesting how this par-tick twosome, who took such pains to not get photographed together before and denied their romance right and left, is now doing such an about-face. Could it be they’re trying to bolster box-office sales with a little costar commingling for the cameras?  

I mean, isn’t this how Tom and Penélope did it, for Vanilla Sky? Who the hell screws after the movie? You’re well on to your next vamp-victim by then, everybody knows that. Right, Scar?

“Where’s Iggy?” a buxom and impossibly perky Mary Hart asked at the Hollywood Film Festival awards we mentioned yesterday. 'Twas regarding, natch, the canine Ellen DeGeneres had removed from the folks she'd gifted him to. All this after signing papers from the adoption agency that clearly stated the gab-show host couldn’t do so.

“She never signed anything,” a close bud to E.D. snapped. “Portia did.” Oh, so blame it on the g-friend, eh? “Ellen wishes [Portia] hadn’t signed the papers, 'cause she never would have let her do it,” 'splained the Ellen amiga, who was essentially forced to speak for the put-upon babe, as no comment was forthcoming from DeGeneres’ official campers.

We still say the one to look out for here is Iggy, not Ellen. E’s a tough broad who’s survived Anne Heche and found homes for lotsa animals in the past. Just watch what you and yours sign in the future, girlfriend. And Iggy? Where’s he?

The animal rescuers who removed the hairy cause célèbre will not say—“for his safety,” they 'splain. Jeez. Ellen 'n' Portia should have just gone the Brad 'n' Angie route and adopted a friggin’ human. Outcome would have been far more positive, fer sure.

Prickly P.S.: E & P campers also insist it's "absolutely not" true the two power pooftahs are breaking up, as has been reported elsewhere. "We’ve heard this before," Portia sighed when hearing the news about her own relationship's demise. Hey, girlfriend, it's when they stop having you as being busted up that it’s time to worry!

Oh, and as far as hirsute messiness goes, what the ef is going on with John Travolta? When we ran into him at the Hilton, all one could see was his strange hairpiece. “You can see the netting,” snitched a well-suited fellow celeb (who requested anonymity, the coward) at the ceremony where J.T. was gifted a Supporting Actor nod for his sex-switch job in Hairspray. Really, it’s hideous of us to highlight this little follicle snafu, as Johnny was so totally te-riff in the bitchin’ flick, and, besides, he had to endure BFF Kirstie Alley presenting him the damn award, and what with her looking like a deranged Patriots linebacker in drag, it was difficult to keep things on point.

Which, in our pissy opinion, happens to be the question: Why the hell are men so much better at drag than the chicks? We put the query to a slew of celebs, from Marcia Gay Harden (“Are they?”) to Janet Jackson (“No comment,” quelle friggin’ surprise with that false-eyelashed bro of hers) to Bai Ling (“Men are just dirty, who cares what they do”) to Alley herself (who fessed it was Travolta who “allowed” her to be the woman she is, if that makes the least bit of Scientology sense, which it doesn’t), which only made us realize it was gonna take a damn producer to answer the deep-thought inquiry.

“It’s not drag,” Hairspray producer Neil Meron blithely told us regarding his versatile star Johnny T, “because, technically, there’s never a reveal.” Oh, yes, there is, we so disagreed!

By the bitchy by, it was Neil (and biz partner Craig Zadan) for whom Catherine Zeta-J swooped into the Bev Hilton ballroom, like a slimmed-down booby bat outta British hell. Neil said he called her up to make the presentation, and she came right over. Should think so, since the broad got an Oscar after stomping so supremely in Neil and Craig’s Chicago. And when we were quite done oohing and drooling over Cathy’s unbelievable bod, saying the broad seems to be nearly beyond magnifique these days, Neil countered:

“She’s not perfect,” he sly-sassed. “Trust me.”

We do, darlin’, we do. (Michael, is that you out there we hear screaming in agreement? Thought so.)