Catherine Zeta-Jones checks herself into treatment for bipolar disorder

Catherine Zeta-Jones checks herself into treatment for bipolar disorder

Shocking news: Catherine Zeta Jones is bipolar. Did anyone else know that? I didn’t. Zeta’s rep just confirmed to People Magazine that CZJ has checked herself into a “mental health facility” to treat her “bipolar II disorder”. Apparently, the stress of the past year - with Michael Douglas’s cancer fight and all - triggered something in Catherine:

    Catherine Zeta-Jones, who has been by husband Michael Douglas’s side during his cancer fight, has sought mental health treatment for herself, her rep says.

    “After dealing with the stress of the past year, Catherine made the decision to check in to a mental health facility for a brief stay to treat her bipolar II disorder,” the rep says in a statement. “She’s feeling great and looking forward to starting work this week on her two upcoming films.”

    Zeta-Jones, 41, spent about five days in the unidentified facility, a friend tells PEOPLE.

    “There’s no question it’s been a stressful year,” the friend says. “Catherine has had deal with Michael’s illness and that’s been hard. She went in for a few days because she’s about to start working, and wanted to make sure she’s in top form, which she is.”

    Douglas, 66, announced in January he was declared free of cancer after what he called a “wild six-month ride” of chemotherapy and radiation for a tumor on his tongue.

[From People]

From a PR standpoint, this is very well executed. The news is stunning because I’m not aware of even a whiff of this kind of thing around Catherine, and it’s not like she’s had any kind of public meltdown or scandals lately or ever. It seems like a situation where Catherine wasn’t doing very well in private, and she and her family simply took time out to acknowledge the problem and help her get treatment. In other words, everyone is behaving in everybody’s best interests and Catherine is going to get the best help money can buy, and all will be well. Good for them!

celebitchy/Photos courtesy of WENN.

'OK!' triumphs in battle of the Zeta Jones wedding snaps

The celebrity magazine OK! has won a long-running court battle with its glossy rival Hello! after a row over pictures of the wedding of Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas.

The House of Lords ruled yesterday that Hello! had breached OK!'s confidentiality when it published unauthorised photographs of the ceremony at New York's Plaza Hotel in November 2000.

The Hollywood couple and OK! first sued Hello! when it published pictures taken secretly at the wedding by a photographer posing as a guest or waiter.

When the case came to court in 2003, Mr Justice Lindsay ruled that Hello! had acted "unconscionably" by publishing the unauthorised photographs. The judge said the snatched photographs, taken by Rupert Thorpe, son of the former Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe, had been obtained by "misrepresentation or subterfuge" and said the "intrusion" was a breach of the Press Complaints Commission code of conduct. In that ruling, the Douglases and OK! were awarded £1m damages, but this was quashed after Hello! successfully went to the Court of Appeal in May 2005. Yesterday's decision means the damages award will now be reinstated.

Three out of five Law Lords found in OK!'s favour over confidentiality but lawyers for Hello! said the victory was pyrrhic because the court also found that Hello! had not knowingly injured OK!'s business. That meant, said lawyers, the estimated £8m costs of the case were expected to be shared by the two magazines.

The £14,600 damages awarded to Douglas and his wife by the High Court for the distress and inconvenience that the Hello! coverage caused them was not challenged at the Court of Appeal.

Hello! argued during the five-day hearing at the House of Lords that any confidentiality ceased after OK! published its own coverage of the wedding while OK! claimed that Hello!'s coverage was unlawful interference with its business or a breach of its right to confidentiality in the images.

Lord Hoffmann said OK! had paid £1m for the benefit of confidence imposed on everyone at the wedding regarding any photographs taken, and "I cannot see why they were not entitled to enforce it." He said other law lords who heard the case were troubled by the fact that the images were not intended to be kept secret but to be published by OK! But Lord Hoffmann said: "I see no reason why there should not be an obligation of confidence for the purpose of enabling someone to be the only source of publication if that is worth paying for." He said it would not create "an image right" - the information was being protected not because it concerned the Douglases or their private life but simply because it was information of commercial value.

Lord Nicholls and Lord Walker rejected the confidentiality claim but Baroness Hale and Lord Brown allowed the appeal. Lord Brown said: "Having paid £1m for an exclusive right, it seems to me that OK! ought to be in a position to protect that right and to look to the law for redress were a third party intentionally to destroy it."