Jessica Simpson’s long-awaited country album is due out September 9, her father Joe tells Usmagazine.com.

“It’s going to be a great year,” he told Us at a taping of Pete Wentz’s new show F’N MTV in Hollywood Thursday.

“It’s 9-9 — she’s into nines this year,” he added. “We hope it’s a wonderful joy. It feels really good. She is extremely happy.”

The video for “Come on Over,” her first single, debuts on her Web site Saturday.

“Next week it’ll be on CMT,” Joe said.

Joe said his daughter — who turned 28 Thursday — is perfect for country music, calling it “the heartland of America.

“We forget on the East and West coasts that there is a whole country in between,” Joe said. “That’s our home, and that’s Jessica’s home.”

Look back at Simpson’s sexy - and scary! - style over the years.

Asked why she recorded a country album, Jessica told Billboard earlier this year: “I am a country girl. I grew up in Texas, and country music was what I listened to.”

Citing Martina McBride, newly single Shania Twain, Faith Hill and Reba McEntire as inspirations, she said, “I think there is a strength in female country artists.”

This weekend, Simpson is headed to Lake Tahoe, where beau Tony Romo is playing in a golf tournament.

“We’ll probably rent a boat and go out on the lake on Saturday,” Romo told Us.

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Jessica Simpson turns 28 today.

Look back at the singer’s sexy — and scary! — style over the years.

So what’s beau Tony Romo getting his birthday girl?

He’s not sure!

“I have to buy her something!” he told Usmagazine.com Wednesday at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe, a resort casino. “I’ll pick something up tonight.”

Asked if he’d pick her up some golf clubs, he laughed: “I don’t know if she’d like that!”

“I think I’ll take her out to dinner,” he added, “a nice restaurant.”

See what a body language expert had to say about Jessica and Tony.

Romo — who is in Lake Tahoe for a golf tournament — said he and Simpson are renting a house.

“We’ll be here all week,” he said. “We’ll probably rent a boat and go out on the lake on Saturday.”

Simpson’s birthday celebrations kicked off Monday when she dined with Romo, her pregnant sister Ashlee and husband Pete Wentz at Sagebrush Cantina in Calabasas, California.

“We had a get together,” Romo said.

Following dinner, Simpson and Romo hit West Hollywood’s Key Club to see Steel Panther (formerly known as Metal Skool).

The Dallas Cowboys quarterback even tried his hand at singing the Guns n’ Roses hit “Sweet Child O’ Mine” to Simpson and the crowd.

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Vanessa Hudgens says “stupid people” leaked the nude photos of her online last year.

“I think people thought I took it lighter than I really did,” the High School Musical star, 19, said of the incident in a new interview with Good Morning America Radio. “For me, it was really tough because I’m a private person and for something like that to happen, it’s so mean.”

She said the experience was “horrible … it sucked. But thankfully it’s over and it’s in the past.”

How did she survive?

“My fans were amazing because they have stood by my side. They really are my core group,” she said. “My family’s always there for me. I just surround myself with good people and try to think of good things.”

See more photos of topless celebs.

In February, Hudgens — who just dropped her new disc Identified — said she was upfront with her mom about the shots.

“I was just open with her, and she was just so cute,” Hudgens told Seventeen. “She was like, ‘Well, everyone can be naked if they want to.’ My parents are very supportive of me. And they know I’m a teenager, and yes, kids do stupid things sometimes.”

The biggest lesson she learned?

“Nothing is private,” she told the magazine. “Everyone knows everything, and they can find out everything about you… you have to be aware of the people you’re around.”

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Eva Mendes, who quietly admitted herself into treatment at the Cirque Lodge in Utah in January, admits that she’s still “sensitive on the subject” of substance abuse problems.

The actress snapped at a reporter for Interview magazine who joked that Alcoholics Anonymous would have to be changed to Alcoholics Unanimous because of the prevalence of problems in Hollywood.

“I’m not making jokes, because people die from this stuff,” she says in the interview, which hits newsstands next week. “So, honestly, I think it’s a bit tacky that you made a joke. I’ve got to be honest.”

Mendes, 34, had entered treatment for “personal issues,” her rep said, amid reports of drug use and body issues.

“There are so many lies out there regarding my recent trip to Cirque Lodge,” she says. “But I don’t care what people think. I just don’t care. So I will neither confirm nor deny.

“I’m not a spokesperson for any kind of substance-abuse organization,” she adds.

“I’m proud of people who have the determination and the fearlessness to actually go and face their demons and get better,” she says. “This is a life or death situation.”

Mendes also says being a Cuban-American actress has helped her career – but Hollywood executives are slow to realize that ethnic diversity is “the future” of America.

“We are the future,” she says. “I mean, we’re all just mixing together that much more. We are the future in that sense. I don’t mean Latinos, I just mean ethnic diversity.”

Though Mendes – who stars in the upcoming films The Women (September) and The Spirit (December) – thinks “being a woman in Hollywood is a big enough challenge” because of “the lack of roles,” she says she is often passed over for roles.

“What makes it frustrating is when a director or a studio head doesn’t see me for the same part that they’ll see, let’s say, Drew Barrymore for,” Mendes says.

“Drew’s a great friend of mine,” Mendes adds. “But it’s like, ‘No, we want more of an American type of girl.’ And it’s like, American has opened up. I’m an American girl, born and raised.”

But Mendes doesn’t consider it a challenge and thinks it’s harder for Asian stars: “We have so many Asian girls in this country, and they’re so not represented up on the screen.”

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Britney Spears spent Saturday night with her boys at her Los Angeles home.

It was the singer’s first overnight visit with Sean Preston, 2 1/2, and Jayden James, 1 1/2, since she was hospitalized at L.A.’s Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in January.

The boys were dropped off Saturday and picked up around 10 a.m. Sunday, according to a source.

“Britney was very upset after the kids left,” the source tells Usmagazine.com. “She now does not know when she will get them next for an overnight. She complains it could be next week, or it could be three months.”

(See photos of Britney with her boys.)

At a hearing last Tuesday, Spears, 26, was granted overnight privileges.

Asked if she were pleased with the judge’s ruling, she smiled and told Us, “yes.”

Meanwhile, Spears and ex Kevin Federline — who was spotted partying in Miami over the weekend — are gearing up for a custody trial, set to begin August 25.

Federline’s attorney Mark Vincent Kaplan told E! that a mediation session last Thursday didn’t result in a custody agreement.

Federline is seeking sole physical and legal custody of sons Preston, 2 1/2, and Jayden, 1 1/2 and wants Spears to continue her current visitation terms.

Said Kaplan, “If the existing arrangement was acceptable to both parties … we wouldn’t have to go to trial. But that didn’t happen.”

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Britney Spears is currently at work on an upcoming album, her vocal producer and co-writer Jim Beanz confirms exclusively to Usmagazine.com.

“Britney is amazing,” Beanz (recipient of the famed Eurovision Award for his song “Believe”) tells Us.

The singer, 26, has had her share of drama, but “we never see anything but positives out of her.

“Everyone has personal stuff, but a true professional doesn’t bring it into the studio,” adds Beanz, who just opened his own studio, Sunset Entertainment Group, in Bryn Mawr, Pa.

In April, her former manager Larry Rudolph told Us that Spears — who is currently in Kentwood, celebrating sister Jamie Lynn’s new baby girl Maddie — had gone into the studio “just for fun.”

Added Rudolph, “she is on the right path.”

Spears’ last album, Blackout, debuted at No. 2 on the U.S. Billboard 200. The first single “Gimme More” was her most successful single in the U.S. since “…Baby One More Time.”

(See photos of Britney’s bikini body.)

Tell Us: What’s your favorite Britney song?

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Jessica Alba and her husband Cash Warren have welcomed a baby girl, her rep confirms to Usmagazine.com.

Honor Marie Warren was born Saturday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Alba’s father was overheard saying “she’s beautiful.” Warren — in a T-shirt, jeans and baseball cap — was spotted carrying food into the maternity ward Sunday.

Alba, 26, and Warren, 28, announced they were expecting last December. (See more surprise pregnancies here.)

During her pregnancy, Alba admitted, “anything could make me incredibly angry or break down crying. That’s not something I’m used to.”

Her one fear about mommyhood: Breastfeeding.

She told Extra she had a dream, and “it had to do with breastfeeding, which is the only thing I’m paranoid about. More than giving birth.”

She and Warren got engaged after announcing their baby news.

They quietly wed in the Beverly Hills courthouse’s ceremony room on May 19.

They just moved into a $4 million Beverly Hills home with their three dogs.

“It’s a lot of stress to buy a house, have a baby and get married in six months,” she recently told USA Weekend. “It’s a lot of life-changing decisions. I’m really, really secure and happy in my relationship.”

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It appears Jessica Simpson and Tony Romo have smoothed out their rough patch.

After a brief split, the pair reunited in Dallas for Memorial Day weekend.

Simpson and Romo shared a corner booth at N9Ne steakhouse on Saturday night according to Alan Peppard of the Dallas Morning News - the columnist who was first to report on the couple’s split.

According to Peppard the pair noshed on steak (for him) and a burger (for her) - and stopped to say hello to another diner with a baby girl on their way out.

On Sunday, Simpson and Romo took in brunch at Sneaky Pete’s in Lewisville, Texas, PerezHilton reported.

Simpson sported a Dallas Cowboys cap while leaving Cabo San Lucas on Thursday.

The singer had been vacationing with her parents, (sans Romo) since her sister tied the knot on May 17.

See Simpson’s relationship ups and downs here.

Tell Us: Do you want to see Jessica and Tony together?

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Hannah Montana star Miley Cyrus feels the pressure of fame – especially after Vanity Fair published a semi-topless photo of the 15-year-old, according to co-star Anna Maria Perez de Tagle.

“Sometimes I’ll talk to her on the phone and she’ll be like, ‘It’s really hard’ or ‘I’m really tired. I can’t do this,’” Perez de Tagle told E!

“But I’ll always say, ‘You do want to do this. You love your job.’ And she’s like, ‘Yeah,’” the actress added.

The Vanity Fair portrait “really hurt her inside,” said Perez de Tagle. “She didn’t know that people would look at it like that.”

After Cyrus apologized and said she was embarrassed when the photo was released, Bill O’Reilly blamed her dad for putting “her into a situation where she becomes, at 15, a sex symbol.”

Production is under way for the Hannah Montana movie, which hits screens in 2009.

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Ashlee Simpson is still remaining mum on impending motherhood.

The newly betrothed singer dodged pregnancy talk yet again on the Today show Friday morning when Matt Lauer prodded about “expanding the family.”

“Well, you know, that’s been going around for about a year now, so only time will tell with that,” Ashlee answered.

Without missing a beat, and changing the topic entirely, the 23-year-old quipped, “But I am giving birth to my record [Bittersweet World]. That’s my new baby.”

While she continued to be coy about her pregnancy, which OK! confirmed on Monday, Ashlee couldn’t stop gushing about her fiancé, Pete Wentz, and the “great job” he did at picking out her new rock.

“I’m very lucky,” she said.

Asked if they have settled on a wedding date, Ash said they don’t have one in mind just yet.

“Right now, we’re just enjoying the engagement.”

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