Glamorous Celebrities! At, Um, Wollman Rink…In which our Tim Murphy attends “Skating With the Stars — Under the Stars” and accosts celebrities like Donald Trump, Johnny Weir, and Christopher Meloni with his camera crew.
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Christopher Meloni, Bald IconEvery time dudes we know get down about their male pattern baldness, we point them to Christopher Meloni of Law & Order: SVU. Meloni, one of People’s Sexiest Men Alive, wears his baldness with confidence. He carries his bald head high, as though he sees his diminished pate not as a sign of depreciating masculinity, but as further proofof it. Baldness, we imagine he thinks, is the kind of thing that happens to a Real Man, a battle scar from the war that is life. And when we see Meloni do his squinty, angry, muscley, bald thing on L&O — well, our heart just goes pitter-patter. As it did when we ran into him at the Celebrity Charades event the other night. Although, much to our dismay, he did not look nearly as bald in person. In fact his head looked sort of weird. Like it was made of candy. He was quick to assure us. “I am balding!” he said. “I have makeup on because I’m coming from work, but I have a growing ozone hole here.” As we imagined, Meloni was comfortable with the aging process. “You know, I actually feel like I’ve gotten better with age,” he said. “I’ve kind of grown into it.” We think so too! After all, we suggested, it’s been said that balding men have more testosterone. “Nuff said,” he said gruffly. “As my friend says, grass don’t grow on a busy highway. I’m a deep thinker.” Swoon! —Jada Yuan
Hear trash talk from Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bobby Cannavale, and others at the LAByrinth Theater Company’s Celebrity Charades.
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Chris Meloni Reveals Riding Past at the PoloOddly enough, the VIP tent at the Mercedes-Benz Polo Challenge in the Hamptons is probably the last place you’ll find anyone actually interested in horses. Usually getting all the attention are the Champagne, hors d’oeuvre, and the genetic miracle that is Christie Brinkley’s face. But this Saturday, Law & Order star Chris Meloni revealed that he actually uses his glutes for something other than making us swoon. “I used to ride, when I was in L.A.,” he told Daily Intel. “[My friend had] one horse that was great, another horse that, you know, had a bad attitude, and he would intentionally run me into trees or under branches that were really low and would try to knock you off.” Meloni’s pal eventually sold the ornery horse, only to find out that “the whole time, he was blind.” Guffaw! Shoulda saved that one for Leno, Chris. Elsewhere at the Mandy Moore–hosted event, a pregnant Jill Hennessy was probably the only star to avoid the booze. “I love watching people munching on little appetizers, salted nuts,” she told us. Pregnant ladies rule. —Brett Amelkin
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Not Everyone Can Visit the High Line (Though Chris Meloni Could If He Wanted)
The first section of the High Line park isn’t scheduled to open until next spring, but sometimes it can feel like everyone has made (sort of) secret, (entirely) illegal visits to the overgrown train trestle. But at the annual Friends of the High Line summer benefit last night, we learned that even some of the High Line’s best Friends haven’t had a chance to visit. “My boyfriend was really angry that when his mom came in town I didn’t take her,” Friends co-founder Robert Hammond, who has been pushing for the park for nearly a decade, told us. “He’s like, ‘What’s the advantage of sleeping with the High Line guy if I can’t take my mom up there?’” (Of course, Hammond’s own parents have already been.) SVU star and longtime Friend Christopher Meloni hasn’t visited either. “They’ve invited me like ten times, but I’ve been working,” he said, no doubt further incensing Hammond’s boyfriend’s mom. “I don’t want them to go out of their way.” The city has to okay any legal visits, Hammond explained, but money also helps: A sunset Champagne tour on the High Line for one lucky bidder and ten friends was auctioned for $17,000 during last night’s cocktail hour. —Amy Odell
Related: The High Line: It Brings Good Things to Life [NYM]