Mother’s death inspired Harry Potter event

London – Author J.K. Rowling said in an interview published Tuesday that her mother’s death while she was writing the Harry Potter books led her to make her hero suffer the death of his own parents.

Rowling said part of the pain of losing her mother Anne, who died in 1990 at the age of 45 after fighting multiple sclerosis for a decade, was that she never knew her daughter was writing the books.

The writer also said when her novels became world famous she had trouble dealing with the stardom.

“I’ve never said this before, but when I was repeatedly asked, ‘How are you coping?’ I would say, ‘Fine.’ I was lying to myself at the time. It was as though I had lived under a rock for a long time and suddenly someone had lifted it off and was shining a torch on me.

“And it’s not that life under the rock was awful, but actually I was petrified and didn’t know how to handle it.”

‘Malcolm’ actor to buy ‘Newlyweds’ house

Los Angeles – The “Newlyweds” home of divorcing Hollywood couple Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey is being bought by “Malcolm in the Middle” teen actor Justin Berfield.

Simpson’s publicist, Rob Shuter, announced just on Monday that the Calabasas, Calif., home was for sale. The house had been listed for $3.75 million.

The 19-year-old Berfield plays the bullying middle child, Reese, on Fox’s “Malcolm in the Middle.”

The Mediterranean-style house was the backdrop for the hit MTV show “Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica.”

Lohan ‘appalled’ by story

New York – Lindsay Lohan is “appalled” by the Vanity Fair article released last week in which she confessed to dabbling in drug and battling bulimia.

The Vanity Fair story, which hit newsstands nationally Tuesday and was widely reported last week, made headlines for the 19-year-old actress’ acknowledgment that she dabbled in drugs “a little.”

The magazine also quoted Lohan on her drastic weight loss last year: “I was making myself sick,” she said. The article, written by Evgenia Peretz, noted Lohan was “referring to bulimic episodes.”

Lohan also said, “I knew I had a problem and I couldn’t admit it.”

However, in a statement released Tuesday to Teen People magazine, Lohan denied having bulimia and said, “The words that I gave to the writer for Vanity Fair were misused and misconstrued, and I’m appalled with the way it was done.”

An editor for Teen People said Lohan’s denial was regarding Vanity Fair’s reporting of her alleged bulimia, not drug use.