2000 in Review: Celebrity Moments

NEW YORK -- With the arrival of reality TV, the word "celebrity" doesn't mean much any more. It doesn't mean you're attractive or talented or rich. You can walk around naked on a desert island or marry a man you don't know on live television and everyone will know your name.

Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones

Still, 2000 had its share of star-powered moments:

Weddings: Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones in a $2 million extravaganza at New York's Plaza hotel. Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston on an ocean bluff in Malibu. Angelina Jolie, Billy Bob Thornton and their tattoos in Vegas. Coming right up: Madonna and Guy Ritchie.

Breakups: Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan (who gets close with Russell Crowe). Ted Turner and Jane Fonda, Elizabeth Hurley and Hugh Grant, Ellen DeGeneres and Anne Heche, Jim Carrey and Renee Zellweger, Melissa Etheridge and Julie Cypher. Eminem and wife Kim Mathers split, then reconcile.

Kathie Lee Gifford

Entrances: Jennifer Lopez in that plunging Versace at the Grammys. Babies for Madonna and Ritchie; Jerry Seinfeld and wife, Jessica; Will and Jada Pinkett Smith; Annette Bening and Warren Beatty; Douglas and Zeta-Jones.

Exits: Kathie Lee Gifford says goodbye to Regis Philbin and morning TV -- his ratings soar. Michael J. Fox leaves "Spin City" to focus on Parkinson's disease research. "Beverly Hills, 90210." Barbra Streisand says again her touring days are over, but don't count her out of the next category.

Robert Downey Jr.

Comebacks: "Shaft," with Samuel L. Jackson playing the original detective's nephew. Rob Lowe in "The West Wing." Charlie Sheen on "Spin City." And then there's Robert Downey Jr., who seemed to have bounced back from a history with drugs and prison into a successful gig on "Ally McBeal" -- until a Thanksgiving drug arrest.

Couples: Will Ferrell (George W. Bush) and Darrell Hammond (Al Gore) on "Saturday Night Live," Bruce Willis and M. Night Shyamalan, Tom Green and Drew Barrymore, Will and Grace, Niles and Daphne, Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. And Angie Harmon and Jason Sehorn, who proposed to her on "The Tonight Show."

Richard Hatch

"Ordinary" people: Richard Hatch schemes his way to the "Survivor" jackpot after Susan Hawk's "rats and snakes" speech. Strangers Darva Conger and Rick Rockwell gain brief, unfortunate fame by marrying on TV's "Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire?" Conger files to have the marriage annulled. Then she poses for Playboy. And we care . . . why?

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