The Word: Renee Zellweger speaks

So if you were anywhere around the Internet earlier this week, you heard about Renee Zellweger and reactions to her recent red carpet appearance. Or, more specifically, reactions to her face. Well, apparently Zellweger was listening. And in a move completely uncharacteristic of celebrity culture, she has offered her own response to the fracas. Only it’s more awesome in theory than in practice. “I’m glad folks think I look different! I’m living a different, happy, more fulfilling life, and I’m thrilled that perhaps it shows,” she tells People magazine. She also calls the all the discussion and debate “silly,” which isn’t exactly the word I’d use for it, but there you go.

“It seems the folks who come digging around for some nefarious truth which doesn’t exist won’t get off my porch until I answer the door,” Zellweger continues, somehow pulling off folksy and coy simultaneously. “My friend say that I look peaceful. I am healthy. For a long time I wasn’t doing such a good job with that. I took on a schedule that is not realistically sustainable and didn’t allow for taking care of myself. Rather than stopping to recalibrate, I kept running until I was depleted and made bad choices about how to conceal the exhaustion. I was aware of the chaos and finally chose different things.” As for talk of a drastic change in her appearance? That’s just time, baby. “People don’t know me in my 40s,” Zellweger explains. “People don’t know me healthy for a while. Perhaps I look different. Who doesn’t as they get older? But I am different. I’m happy.” So I guess you can get off her porch now?

If you’ve been waiting and waiting for Billy Bob Thornton to finally address that whole Angelina Jolie wearing a vial of blood around her neck thing from more than a decade ago, then first of all? Weird. And second of all, it’s your lucky day! While speaking at Loyola Marymount University in L.A. recently, the “Sling Blade” actor was asked about his ex-wife’s infamous piece of jewelry. “I think it’s your duty to kind of tell people the truth about this stuff, and the truth is not encouraged anymore,” Thornton says. So here’s the truth: “You know those lockets you buy that are clear and you put a picture of your grannie in it or something like that and wear it around your neck? That’s what it was,” he explains. “She thought it would be interesting and romantic if we took a little razor blade and sliced our fingers, smeared a little blood on these lockets and you wear it around your neck just like you wear your son or daughter’s baby hair in one. Same thing. From that, we were wearing quart jars of blood around our necks. And we were vampires and we lived in a dungeon.” I knew it!

There are some places Daniel Radcliffe can’t just casually show up without stirring up rumors and speculation. Case in point: A recent visit by the “Harry Potter” star to the set of the new “Star Wars” movie. Radcliffe insists to MTV News that he was just visiting some old friends — “All the ‘Potter’ crew were doing it, so I was mainly [there] to see them,” he explains — and not to film a completely awesome, franchise-blending cameo. “I didn’t realize I’d caused commotion. I’m not in the movie,” Radcliffe says by way of apology. “There are, I think, probably some weird little things that are happening, but I’m not any one of them.” Radcliffe also let slip that he’s something of a newbie when it comes to the galaxy far, far away. “I had only watched the first three original movies within the last six months. I’m like a new ‘Star Wars’ fan,” he says. “I admitted that to [director] J.J. Abrams and he looked at me like he maybe wanted to kill me for a second.” But then Abrams got over it and finished filming Radcliffe’s surprise “Star Wars” cameo, right?

It turns out all Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel really wanted was an apology, and they got one. In a Dublin courtroom this week, British tabloid Heat was forced to offer a mea culpa for reporting that Timberlake had been flirting with women in Paris this summer. “The article was based on an unfounded report regarding Justin Timberlake’s alleged behavior at a club following a performance in Paris to celebrate a birthday and also included a number of purported statements improperly attributed to Jessica Biel, which Heat now understand had never been made by her,” representatives for the tabloid said in a statement read in court, adding that Heat “regrets any embarrassment caused to the couple and unreservedly apologizes to them.” While there were no details of any financial settlement divulged, a lawyer representing Timberlake and Biel said they “are very satisfied with this categoric retraction of what was a false and unfounded story.” See? All better.

New Yorkers have recently had to contend with costumed comic book and movie characters in Times Square hocking photo opportunities to tourists, but it’s been a regular fixture on Hollywood Boulevard for years. And, well, sometimes with that many superheroes around, sometimes it gets messy. This week, a brawl broke out between a few of the colorful characters, creating one of the most entertaining local news play-by-plays of a brawl in recent memory: “At the beginning, we see Mr. Incredible and Batgirl struggling. Chewbacca tries to break it up. Batgirl scratches Mr. Incredible,” local CBS reporter Suzanne Marques reports. “Waldo and Freddy Krueger step in. They try to hold back Mr. Incredible, who gets loose, chases Batgirl, throws a punch, kicks her and then flips her onto the sidewalk. Bystanders chase him off.”

Another costumed vendor — who identified himself only as Batman — says it’s just the result of a bad element on the Walk of Fame. “The good ones, we’re stationary, we’ll stand against the curb, people come to us,” Batman says. “But the bad ones, they roam up and down, so they cross paths or they target the same people, and then they get into each other. It’s less now because we have a lot more police presence here since last year, and it has made a difference. It’s not cleaned up yet, but it is getting better.” Last year, by the way? Two Captain Americas beat up a Spider-Man, prompting more cops to patrol the area.