America's Sweetheart

MISS CONGENIALITY Julia Roberts publicly discussed her breakup with boyfriend of four years Benjamin Bratt for the first time last night on ''Late Show with David Letterman.'' ''It's come to a kind and tender-hearted end,'' she said of their relationship. She had only complimentary words for her ex. ''OK, here's the thing: I love Benjamin. He's a good man; he's a fine man. He is, to the exultation of the female single population, not my man anymore,'' she said. Talking about her ''Ocean's Eleven'' costar George Clooney, who recently quipped that he couldn't have come between Julia and Ben because he was too busy breaking up the marriage of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, Roberts called him ''a kind and lovely man, though not my boyfriend. I'm single.''

LEGAL BRIEFS Anna Nicole Smith is busted. A Texas probate judge ordered her to pay $541,000 in legal fees to her stepson, Pierce Marshall, for contesting the will of her late husband, nonagenarian tycoon J. Howard Marshall II. The judge also ordered her and J. Howard Marshall III (Pierce's brother) to pay $1.2 million in court costs. Smith still has a shot at inheriting a chunk of her husband's fortune, with a federal judge currently reviewing the California bankruptcy court ruling that awarded her $475 million of the estate....

Who wants to be a millionaire? Former contestant Richard Rosner does, so badly that he's suing ABC and the game show's producers for a rematch over what he believes was a faulty question. He was ruled incorrect on the $16,000 question ''What capital city is located at the highest altitude above sea level?'' He says La Paz, Bolivia, is the world's highest capital, but it wasn't among the four choices. If he's not allowed back on the show, Rosner wants at least $1 million in damages.

REVEALING 'SKIN' Part of the reason for Melissa Etheridge's success attracting straight as well as gay listeners has been her refusal to use personal pronouns, so her love songs sound like she could be singing them to a man or a woman. But Etheridge's new CD, ''Skin,'' features a song ''It's Only Me,'' that uses the word ''her'' for the first time. ''I'm making a sexual reference to a woman here, and that's really the first time, and to me that's a big deal,'' she told Variety. She also confirmed that, in the wake of her breakup with Julie Cypher, her longtime partner and the biological mother of the couple's children, she's got a new girlfriend, Tammy Lynn Michaels of TV's ''Popular.'' Says Etheridge, ''I'm very happy and it's very clean and wonderful.''

SHOWGIRL Carmen Electra is heading back to Las Vegas, and not for another quickie wedding. The frequently undraped TV and film actress, whose brief 1998 marriage to Dennis Rodman began with an impromptu Vegas ceremony, will enjoy a much longer engagement as the star of ''Lumiere,'' a multimedia production at the new Aladdin Resort. She'll play 12 shows a week when ''Lumiere'''s run starts next year, inaugurating a yet-unbuilt 1,100-seat auditorium. Electra also agreed last week to lend her voice to ''Lil' Pimp,'' a feature-length adaptation of the MediaTrip.com webtoon costarring Bernie Mac, Jennifer Tilly, William Shatner, and Lil' Kim.

REEL DEALS If you could get Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, and Cameron Diaz to star in your movie for about $3 million apiece, that would be a bargain, no? That's about how much they earned on ''Shrek,'' where each took a modest salary (just above union scale) upfront in exchange for a share of the profits. For the sequel, the trio is negotiating for up to $5 million apiece, which still sounds like a bargain. But Variety calculates that, given the light workload required of cartoon voice actors, that adds up to about $35,000 an hour for each performer....

Catherine Zeta-Jones is in talks to star in ''Chicago,'' Miramax's film adaptation of the Tony-winning Bob Fosse musical about two dangerous dames who become media sensations when they're tried for murder in the 1920s. Zeta-Jones is up for the role of Velma, the villainous vaudevillian played originally by Chita Rivera and in the recent revival by Bebe Neuwirth (no word yet on who would costar as Roxie). Zeta-Jones had a lot of experience singing and dancing back in England, where she starred in the West End revival of ''42nd Street.'' Broadway veteran Rob Marshall plans to shoot ''Chicago'' early next year....

Robert De Niro is usually more frightening than frightened, but he's in talks to star in ''Scared Guys,'' a comedy about two agoraphobic roommates who haven't left their house in years. De Niro would play a therapist who gives advice over the Internet (now, there's a job we haven't seen in the movies yet) who must cross the street to save the neighbor he has a crush on from a murder plot. (Can't he just email her?) Jim Carrey had been considering for the starring role, but decided instead to shoot ''The Majestic'' for director Frank Darabont (''The Green Mile''). Director Dean Parisot (''Galaxy Quest'') will shoot the ''Scared Guys'' screenplay, written by Jeff Nathanson (''Rush Hour 2''), starting this winter....

Two competing suitors will try to save the last dance for Julia Stiles, who will star in ''Carolina,'' about a woman who leaves her wacky Southern family for the West Coast. Marleen Gorris, who directed the Oscar-winning Dutch film ''Antonia's Line,'' will direct. Shooting begins July 23 in Los Angeles.

TUBE TALK Brutal competition has been good for NBC, which won the ratings week with the help of top-20 shows ''Weakest Link,'' ''Fear Factor,'' and Saturday's broadcast of the Daytona 400, whose 10.2 million viewers made it the most-watched prime time NASCAR race ever. Good for ABC, too, whose ''Who Wants to Be a Millionaire'' took three of the top five spots, including No. 1. But at CBS, in a cruel Orwellian paradox, no one is watching ''Big Brother,'' whose first two episodes, despite the more blatantly sexual tone, came in third and fourth in their time slots and failed to crack the top 20. NBC pulled an average 7.8 million viewers, followed by ABC (7.3 million), CBS (7.2 million), Fox (5.8 million), UPN (3 million) and the WB (2.3 million)....

Gloria Reuben, who left ''ER'' two years ago to sing backup on Tina Turner's tour, is returning to her old 10 p.m. Thursday time slot. She'll play a counter-terrorism expert on CBS's new CIA drama ''The Agency'' on six episodes this fall, with an option to become a permanent cast member.

LAUGH TRACK Rowan Atkinson walked away uninjured from the crash of his Aston Martin during a race in Darlington, England. A racing spokesman said that the 46-year-old comedian's brakes failed, causing his car to run off the track and hit a barrier. Atkinson, best known for playing near-silent bumbler Mr. Bean in short films and a feature, escaped unscathed from a similar racing crash two years ago.