Allison Samuels

The King of Pop's Latest MoonwalkWe swore after he dangled the baby, no more Michael Jackson for the next year. But when a guy who looks like the Tin Man tells the world how sweet it is to sleep chastely with children--other people's children--you just have to think out of the box.

Sure, a diamond is "forever." But that doesn't mean it can't be trendy. L.A. jeweler Chris Arie ("The Iceman" to his patrons) has earned an A-list following including Allen Iverson, Will Smith and Halle Berry--who just snatched up 20 of his diamond-and-platinum dog-tag necklaces ($900 and up) for her friends, like best bud Oprah.

My mother told me when I was pretty young that you can be who you are or try hard to be something else," Whoopi Goldberg says, with a toss of those trademark funky dreadlocks. "I was always a lazy b--h, so trying hard to be something else wasn't going to happen." That's always been the Goldberg formula for success: one part Horatio Alger uplift, one part in-your-face street talk and one part in-her-own-face self-parody.

No Hollywood screenwriter would have dared to dream up a story as improbable as Antwone Fisher's--except one. Fisher grew up in Cleveland's foster-care system; his foster parents neglected and abused him, and he picked fights with everyone in sight, even after he enlisted in the Navy.

Cornell Haynes Jr. looks every inch a GQ man. Young, handsome and with millions in the bank thanks to his rap alter ego known as Nelly, Haynes is only one of a handful of men selected to appear in the fashion magazine's music issue, and it's easy to see why.

DJ Jazzy Jeff needed a moment to let it sink in. One of the founding fathers of hip-hop, Jam Master Jay of Run-DMC, had been murdered, and the phones in Jazz's office were ringing off the hook with friends and reporters wanting to talk.

Wood hasn't looked this good in decades. Clogs, a fashion outcast since the '70s, are finally hip again. Designers like Michael Kors, Dolce & Gabbana and Miu Miu (and lower-end knockoffs like Candies and Steve Madden) are all selling clogs, reinvented with a sleeker shape and steeper heel. "We can't keep them in stock," says a rep for Saks Fifth Avenue. But remember, clogs are cool. Clogging is not. Besides, hoofing in these heels would be hazardous to your health.

Grant Hill isn't afraid to show off his wounds. So after a long, one-on-one workout with a fellow Duke alum, Hill slumps down on a row of wooden benches and takes off his left sneaker. "Don't look at my ugly feet," he says, rolling down his sock to bare a swollen ankle with three large, dark slashes running across it. "Just look at the scars."The scars, from three surgeries that derailed the Orlando Magic forward's career for two full seasons, represent just the visible challenge to Hill's...

Hollywood hits a new l'eau. The gardenia-scented potions from Kai have won fans like Barbra Streisand, Jennifer Garner and Tyra Banks. "It's just a yummy smell," Banks says. But the real draw was exclusivity: only one Malibu shop carried it. Now several do, and kaifragrance.com launches soon. Only the prices are B list: $40 for oil, $30 for lotion.

Hollywood hits a new l'eau. Kai's Gardenia-scented potions won fans like Barbra Streisand, Jennifer Garner and Tyra Banks. "It's just a yummy smell," Banks says. But Kai's real draw was exclusivity: only one Malibu shop carried it. Now it's at the Lisa Kline Boutique in Beverly Hills and Malibu's Planet Blue, and kaifragrance.com launches soon. Only the prices are B-list: $40 for oil, $30 for lotion.

He is superman, after all. So it shouldn't surprise anybody that Christopher Reeve has defied the odds again. Last week one of Reeve's rehab doctors, John W.

Beyonce Knowles is not pleased. The 20-year-old lead singer of Destiny's Child wants something to read while a stylist weaves her curly, honey-blond hair into a funky ponytail.

Will Smith has always been a man with a plan. With plans. Back when he was the rapper known as the Fresh Prince, he wanted to become an actor. As a movie star, he wanted to go beyond slam-bang summer action flicks ("Men in Black," "Independence Day") to serious character studies ("Ali").

Everyone knows that Allen is a pretty difficult guy to get along with," says an associate of Philadelphia 76ers superstar Allen Iverson. "And no one knows that better than his wife." Mrs.

Like a good piece of sweet-potato pie, "Soul Food" has finally found the right seasoning. "Soul Food" is the first African-American TV drama to make it to its third season, and its very survival provides a lesson in the ways of television.

Angela Bassett has a flair for the dramatic. Two hours into a long, frank interview at a Beverly Hills lounge, the actress is asked why, after not starring in a movie for four years, she turned down a chance for the lead in "Monster's Ball." Bassett bolts out of her overstuffed chair, and throws out her arms in a gesture worthy of her idol, Bette Davis: "It's about character, darling." In "Monster's Ball," which won Halle Berry an Oscar, a black waitress has a graphic, tortured--and, Bassett...

Want to look like a starlet? Just combine good genes with Seven jeans. At about $150 a pair, the butt-flattering pants are popular with everyone from Reese Witherspoon to Brandy, who's nine months pregnant. "Seven has just the right amount of stretch to fit all shapes," says a rep at L.A.'s Fred Segal. "That's the genius of it." After two years of being sold only at high-end retailers like Fred Segal and Curve in Beverly Hills, Seven jeans have finally hit upscale chains, including Neiman...

Dissing on vinyl has always been a rap mainstay: mike swipes meant more sales, more ink. But lobbing insults took a dangerous turn in the late '90s when ill will between Death Row Records and Bad Boy Entertainment was believed to have contributed to the murders of Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. "It made everybody in the industry pause," says L.A.

As 10,000 mourners gathered in a cavernous televangelist church in suburban Atlanta last Thursday to pay their last respects to TLC's Lisa (Left Eye) Lopes, Arista Records chief L.

Ask Tampa Bay wide receiver Keyshawn Johnson where he was 10 years ago this week, and he gives you a sheepish grin. "I responded the way most black young men 18 or 19 years old did during that time," says Johnson, now 29, who was attending the University of Southern California on a football scholarship when he learned that his boyhood neighborhood of South-Central was on fire. "I couldn't sit home and watch it on television.

It's pretty clear Spike Lee is a history buff, so it's no wonder that his first HBO documentary, 1997's "Four Little Girls," about four black children murdered at Sunday school in 1963, was nominated for an Oscar.

When Memphis Grizzlies forward Pau Gasol was named NBA Rookie of the Year last week, the 21-year-old Spanish sensation became the first European player to capture the award.

It isn't hard to find the intersection of 106th Street and Park Avenue in Harlem. Just follow the hundreds of teens clad in their hip-hop finest, lined up in front of the warehouse where Black Entertainment Television tapes its daily music countdown show. "106 & Park" has become a wildly popular program by featuring guest appearances by the likes of Puffy and Mary J.

Joan Clayson's life looks pretty familiar to a lot of black women. She's a hard-working thirtysomething with a good job, terrific friends, a fly wardrobe ...

Every career has its moment of truth. For Denzel Washington, it came on a March evening two years ago, when Gwyneth Paltrow took the stage at L.A.'s Shrine Auditorium to announce what many friends and fans hoped would be his first Academy Award for best actor. "I remember buying three Armani suits for that night because I just knew Denzel would win and we were going to party all night long,'' recalls "Boyz N the Hood" director John Singleton.

Last year, after over a decade in the music business, Lenny Kravitz finally landed a magazine cover that rocked his world. It wasn't Rolling Stone. Nor was it Vanity Fair, Us Weekly or even NEWSWEEK. "I got Essence!" exclaims the singer.

Alicia Keys is having a funky hair day. R&B's new queen is in a New York brownstone doing a cover photo shoot for Essence magazine, but her signature braids are a bit too frizzy, and her personal braider will have to unravel her lengthy mane and begin again.

In the mood for celeb spotting at Hollywood hot spots? These days it's easier finding stars in L.A.'s smoggy skies. The terrorist threat has famous folks running for cover--or the nearest gas-mask purveyor.

Growing up in a poor Los Angeles neighborhood that still shows scars from the 1992 riots, David Ramirez watched friends wind up in juvie, or worse, after getting involved in theft and other small-time crimes.

He entered the rap world in 1992 with a lazy Southern drawl, a lanky physique and a name built for fame. Snoop Doggy Dogg, as he was then known, first hooked hip-hop fans with his underground hit "187 on a Undercover Cop." That year he also penned most of the songs on Dr.