‘Ugly Betty’ star pitching in for Hillary Clinton

Courtney Hazlett The Scoop

While all eyes were on the auto bailout last week, another bailout of sorts was taking shape: One for Sen. Hillary Clinton, who has racked up $7.5 million in campaign debt.

In this case, it’s not the government who will be pitching in, but instead, “Ugly Betty” star America Ferrera.

On Dec. 15, Ferrera will serve as master of ceremonies at a debt-retirement “conversation” with the former first lady at New York City’s Manhattan Center Studios.

While reps for Ferrera didn’t comment as to whether she’ll be making her own personal donation to offset Clinton’s debt, Ferrera’s commitment to the Secretary of State pick has been steadfast.

“She was extremely vocal for her support of Sen. Clinton and she got along great with all the Clintons, in fact,” says one source who was on the campaign trail with both Ferrera and Clinton.

Ferrera announced her support of Clinton in Jan. 2008, and campaigned for her in Nevada and Pennsylvania.

Paula Abdul movin' out
“American Idol” judge Paula Abdul has put her house in Sherman Oaks on the market less than a month after former contestant Paula Goodspeed was found dead outside the home.

A rep for Abdul says that the listing doesn’t have anything to do with the apparent suicide.

“Paula simply feels she has outgrown the house," a spokesperson told Us Weekly. "And given the recent public disclosure of her address, it seemed time that she move into a gated community.”

Jimmy Fallon’s Webisodes to go live
There’s still no official start date for “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon,” but fans will be able to begin to get a taste of what’s to come when daily video blogs start hitting NBC.com at 12:35 a.m. on Dec. 9.

A rep for Fallon confirms that the Webisodes will not be bite-size episodes of what you’ll see when Fallon officially takes over the Conan spot — they’ll just be behind-the-scenes blogs of Fallon being, well, Fallon.

Details of what to expect when “Late Night” goes live this spring have been hard to come by, but more and more often, Fallon has been spotted at 30 Rock. Also, The Roots are rumored to be Fallon’s house band, although NBC hasn’t confirmed that yet.

It's still 'Christmas' at box office
It was a fairly quiet weekend at the box office, but “Four Chistmases” managed to stay on top as predicted. The Reese Witherspoon/Vince Vaughn comedy had an $18-million weekend. “Twilight” and “Bolt” were #2 and #3.

Slideshow   Celebrity sightings Britney gets her Bambi, Cruise and Beckham do Broadway. more photos

The one interesting thing to come out of the weekend was “Frost/Nixon.” It opened on literally three screens, and made $180,000 — an average of just more than $60,000 per theater.

If you’re on the fence about whether to see this much-buzzed-about potential Oscar flick, I spell out three things to consider in this video.

More on America Ferrera | Sen. Hillary Clinton

Courtney Hazlett delivers the Scoop Monday through Friday on msnbc.com.

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