Star pair Broderick, Parker expect child

NEW YORK -- It's offspring time for Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker: They're expecting their first child.

Syndicated columnist Liz Smith reported Friday that Parker, 37, is pregnant, and is due to give birth in the fall. Parker's publicist wasn't immediately available for comment.

The 40-year-old Broderick, who recently co-starred on Broadway in "The Producers," and Parker, co-star of HBO's "Sex and the City," have been married since May 1997.

Songwriter calls Lopez' lyrics just coincidence

NEW YORK -- Ashanti said it's just a coincidence that the lyrics she wrote for Jennifer Lopez's No. 1 hit, "Ain't It Funny," make it sound like Lopez is brushing off her famous ex, Sean "Puffy" Combs.

"No one believes me, but I promise you that I was not thinking about Puff whatsoever when I wrote that record," Ashanti said.

The R&B newcomer, who has her own hit, "Foolish," wrote the lyrics for the remixed version of "Ain't It Funny," according to her label, Def Jam.

The song includes the lines: "I remember how you did me wrong/And now you're hurtin' cos my love is gone/Everybody gets a chance to burn/You can take it as a lesson learned." Some have speculated that the song is about Lopez's relationship with the hip-hop star, which ended over a year ago.

Lopez since has married dancer Cris Judd.

"It's crazy, because it fits right in, and it's safe to assume that she's gotta be talking about him, but I promise that I did not have him in mind. I told him that!" the 21-year-old Ashanti said, acknowledging that the song had Combs wondering, too.

"He called, and we had to clear that up."

Harassment of Hurley puts man in court

LONDON -- A man appeared in court Friday accused of harassing Elizabeth Hurley, who has just given birth to her first child.

Petar Mihajlovic, who gave his address as Hollywood, Calif., appeared at West London Magistrates Court, charged with harassing the 36-year-old model-actress.

Judge Simon Cooper refused to grant bail and Mihajlovic, 32, was ordered to be held in custody until the case is called again next week.

Hurley, the former face of Estee Lauder cosmetics who has appeared in movies including "Bedazzled" and "Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery," gave birth Thursday to a boy, Damian Charles.

Network for women celebrates second year

NEW YORK -- The Oxygen network celebrated its second birthday with a blowout party that included a nearly two-hour concert by India.Arie.

The seven-time Grammy nominee performed her hit "Video" and other songs Thursday night in front of a crowd that included Katie Couric, actors Jesse L. Martin and Kyra Sedgwick, model Iman, and Oprah Winfrey, an investor in the Oxygen network.

At one point, Roberta Flack joined India.Arie onstage as the soul newcomer sang one of Flack's classics, "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face."

"The girl can sing!" gushed Winfrey as she hugged India.Arie on stage.

Winfrey and other guests toasted the network at the end of the evening by downing a shot of vodka.

The Oxygen network, on cable, is geared toward women.

Crowe heading to court after extortion plot

SYDNEY, Australia -- Russell Crowe is set to star in an Australian court as the real-life victim of an alleged extortion plot.

Video footage allegedly showing Crowe in a street brawl will be key evidence in the trial of three men charged with trying to blackmail the Oscar-winning "Gladiator" star.

The New Zealand-born Australian also may be called to give evidence in the trial that is scheduled to start Monday and last two weeks, a spokesman for the New South Wales state public prosecutor's office said Friday.

The case centers on a nightclub surveillance video that reportedly shows Crowe and several others fighting outside a Coffs Harbor night club in November 1999. Crowe owns a ranch outside the small beach-side resort, 280 miles north of Sydney.

Philip Anthony Cropper, 36, and Malcolm Brian Mercer, 37, are accused of threatening to have the video published on national television unless Crowe paid them $106,000. Prosecutors have not said how the men got the video.

Cropper, Mercer and another defendant, Mark James Potts, 42, also are charged with perverting the course of justice by withholding the video from police. Blackmail carries a maximum 10-year sentence in New South Wales and perverting the course of justice a maximum of 14 years.

Osbourne's 17-year-old daughter cuts record

NEW YORK -- Ozzy Osbourne's teen-age daughter is following in her father's musical footsteps, but don't expect her to bark at the moon.

Kelly Osbourne is recording a cover of "Papa Don't Preach," a No. 1 hit for Madonna in 1986, with Incubus members Mike Einziger and Jose Pasillas II.

The guys in Incubus have been friends with the Osbournes since first playing the Ozzfest concert tour in 1998, Incubus spokeswoman Melissa Dragich said Thursday. Einziger, the guitarist, and Pasillas, the drummer, agreed to back Kelly up before the band begins a U.S. tour.

But Kelly says she didn't choose to sing Madonna's rebellious pop song, which will appear on the soundtrack to the new hit MTV series "The Osbournes," due out in May.

"My mom did and asked me to do it," the pink-haired 17-year-old told MTV News this week. She said she was worried. "I don't think I'm a very good singer."

--From wire reports