VMAs would consider 2nd chance for Spears

Los Angeles – MTV isn’t ruling out giving viewers more Britney Spears at this year’s Video Music Awards.

“Everyone deserves a second or third chance, right?” Van Toffler, president of MTV Networks Music Group, playfully told The Associated Press during a telephone interview Friday. When asked if he was just joking, Toffler said “sorta.”

“Who knows?” he said.

Spears’ out-of-it “Gimme More” comeback performance during last year’s MTV Video Music Awards at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas was one of the most-talked televised moments of 2007. The drama-filled VMAs drew 7.1 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research. Another Spears redux could equal even more eyeballs.

“I’m not sure how we top Britney opening the show,” said Toffler. “We are working on it every minute of every day.”

This year’s MTV Video Music Awards will air live from Paramount Pictures Studios in Los Angeles on Sept. 7. (MTV and Paramount are corporate cousins within Viacom Inc.)

Studdard prepares for weekend wedding

Birmingham, Ala. – Former “American Idol” Ruben Studdard is getting ready for a weekend wedding in his home state of Alabama.

Studdard, nicknamed the “Velvet Teddy Bear” on “Idol” for his big frame and sonorous voice, will marry Surata Zuri McCants, his girlfriend of two years, at the Canterbury United Methodist Church in Mountain Brook on Saturday.

He met his bride-to-be during a CD-signing at a Wal-Mart store in Atlanta in October 2006. The 29-year-old singer says he was struck by McCants’ beauty and later tracked her down in the toy department and asked for her telephone number.

Studdard is set to release a new album later this year.

Distribution of Troyer sex tape halted

Los Angeles – A 25-second snippet of video showing Verne Troyer and a former girlfriend having sex that was available online over the past couple of days is all the world will see of the tape – for now.

A federal judge on Friday granted a temporary restraining order requested by Troyer’s attorneys that prevents porn distributors from taking orders for the full-length video, and prevents TMZ from broadcasting any more clips.

The celebrity Web site posted the short segment on its site on Wednesday; Troyer sued the site and porn distributors on Thursday for $20 million in damages.

U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez wrote that Troyer’s motion “demonstrated that he will suffer irreparable harm to his reputation” if the tape is distributed. It barred further broadcasting of the tape, which Troyer’s attorney, Tracy Rane, interpreted as meaning that TMZ has to remove the video from its site.

TMZ removed the snippet of the tape by late Friday afternoon, instead redirecting Web viewers to its homepage. Another post describing the lawsuit remained active Friday.

Teri Hatcher, daughter visit school in Nairobi

New York – It wasn’t Teri Hatcher who made a big impression on schoolchildren in Nairobi, Kenya. It was her 10-year-old daughter, Emerson Rose.

Hatcher and Emerson visited a boarding school where the students hit it off with the California tween.

“They loved my daughter,” Hatcher, one of the stars of ABC’s “Desperate Housewives,” told The Associated Press in a phone interview from Tanzania.

Hatcher said her daughter brought letters and drawings from her fourth-grade classmates to kick off a pen-pal exchange with at least 40 children at the boarding school.

“She’s been more excited about that, I think, than seeing the giraffes and the hippos” on their two-week African trip, Hatcher said.

Hatcher raised more than $35,000 in donations and supplies from individuals and companies for AmericaShare, which primarily provides education, food and housing to children and adults affected by poverty and HIV/AIDS in Nairobi.

Steven Tyler: Rehab was for medication

New York – Steven Tyler sought the “safe environment” of rehab last month to recover from more than just surgery – the Aerosmith frontman now says was fighting a dependency on pain and sleep medication.

“To have your feet done, to have your leg done, you have to be on narcotics,” Tyler told The Associated Press on Friday. “You have to be on sleep aids at night. I don’t know about Joe (Perry) but I was off and running and I didn’t like the me that was me.”

Tyler released a statement in late May saying he checked into a rehab facility in search of a “safe environment” to recover from several foot surgeries and physical therapy. Tyler said the procedures were to correct longtime foot injuries resulting from his physical performances as the singer for the blues-rock band.

“This was a month ago, so I just put the brakes on and checked into detox and just pulled the plug on all of it,” he told the AP on Friday night at the Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square, where he and bandmates were promoting “Guitar Hero 3: Aerosmith Edition.”