Laura MooreThe Daily Northwestern

In the countless hours I spend sifting through the dregs of entertainment news and gossip for this column, I sometimes find tidbits of celebrity minutiae that shock me. And I am not easily shocked. I mean I shop at Urban Outfitters and I used to watch Howard Stern, so, seriously, I’m totally jaded.

But this week I had to eat my words, because I found out that amidst all the Darfur talk and the AIDS rhetoric and the global warming jibber jabber that what celebs care about most is money. “WHAT!?” I know.

Lately celebrities have been making outrageous demands for cash to do things that you and I – who are not used to, say, rolling erotically on a hotel bed covered in $100 bills (FACT: that is what you do when you’re rich and famous) – would probably pay to do. They covet multimillion-dollar paychecks the way I covet quarters to do my laundry each week. So just in case someone reading this is entrenched in a battle with a greedy superstar and wants to know where they could have started their negotiations had they been dealing with me, I’d like to use this week’s column to offer my services for the future. And as further incentive let’s compare their demands to mine, shall we?

Rosie O’Donnell: Wanted a one-year contract for $10 million to stay on The View. ABC wanted to sign her for three years at a price of $6 million.

Laura: First, let me say, I will give ABC my dignity and my first born child for $6 million. But we don’t even have to go that far. I simply want the right to mace Elizabeth Hasselbeck whenever she feels compelled to speak. After she has the baby, of course! I’m not a monster. Also, I don’t want to sit next to Barbara because people older than 70 make me nervous.

Gisele B