TVLINE | With the news that you’re considering bringing in an actress — perhaps Jennifer Love Hewitt — to replace Mariska Hargitay halfway through Law & Order: SVU next season, is this confirmation that you believe there’s life in this show beyond Mariska and Chris Meloni?
I do believe that. Although, to clarify, this isn’t to replace Mariska. The idea is that we want to bring in somebody midway through the season alongside Mariska and Chris. Mariska’s deal is closed for [a 13th] season, so she’s not disappearing. Creatively, I think it will give [Benson] some competition, which I think will be interesting. And then we have to look at what a 14th season might require. Mariska just adopted a child. We don’t know yet if she wants to do the show for a Season 14, and we’re looking at options. Jennifer Love is somebody who we’ve been circling, but I don’t know that that is going to happen at all.

TVLINE | The word “replacement” was used because the new character would be introduced as Meloni’s new partner as Hargitay’s character moved into more of a supervisory role.
That creatively is the thinking. New showrunner Warren Leight is in the process of figuring all of that out. We’re trying to change it up and see if some new configurations could keet the show going for several more years.

TVLINE | Meloni’s deal for Season 13 isn’t done yet. Are you concerned?
I think we’re gonna be in pretty great shape with Chris.

Source

“I’m super excited [and] very nervous, oddly enough,” Hewitt told PEOPLE at a W magazine party celebrating the Golden Globes Friday night. “I don’t get nervous, but I feel nervous. I’m really excited.”

Hewitt, who attended the party with her actor boyfriend Alex Beh, earned her first Globe nomination – best performance by an actress in a mini-series or a motion picture made for television – for her portrayal of a Texas physical therapist-turned prostitute in The Client List.

One thing the actress can feel relaxed about is her Golden Globes gown.

“I tried on like 20 dresses, and it was the one that each of the three times I went back, I put it on and it was the dress I stood up the straightest in,” she says. “I felt like, ‘Yeah, this is me, and this is my dress!’ ”

And Beh is a fan as well, according to Hewitt: “He saw a picture and he loves it,” she said.

The Ghost Whisperer star and her new man are “good” and “feeling good about where we are,” she says, shooting down the idea that they’re feeling pressure to take the next step in their relationship.

As for what makes them work as a couple, “friendship … is the best part,” Hewitt says. “We are good friends, and we have really good communication, oddly enough, because I’m not good at communicating in relationships [but] he’s teaching me.”

The 68th Annual Golden Globe Awards, hosted by Ricky Gervais, will air live Jan. 16 on NBC at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT from the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills.

Source

“We’re going to go to coffee in the morning — that’s going to be exciting,” Hewitt told UsMagazine.com at the Art of Elysium Heaven Gala in L.A. Saturday. “We usually go to Coffee Bean so we’ll chill out there.”

Once she arrives back home, “I’m going to read magazines in the morning and just relax,” she said. “I actually have Us Weekly for tomorrow. I haven’t read the magazines this week, so I have them laid out for tomorrow.”

As she flips through this week’s issue — and learns all about how Taylor Swift got burned by ex Jake Gyllenhaal — her hair and makeup team is “going to show up and work their magic.”

And the 31-year-old actress — who earned her first Golden Globe nomination ever for her role in The Client List — tells Us she has high hopes for the night.

“I will be wearing earrings my mom gave me as a good luck charm, and I have a human good luck charm over here with me,” she said before pointing to current squeeze Alex Beh. “So that’s going to be good!”

“I’m nervous, but in a really good way. I’m nervous and excited,” she added. “I don’t want to miss a moment!”

Source

“We laugh a lot,” she told Us Weekly about the 27-year-old filmmaker. “He’s hilarious.” We’re happy that she’s happy, but is it too soon to be sharing?

Her last relationship with comedian and Ghost Whisperer costar Jamie Kennedy was “the happiest I’ve ever been” according to an interview she gave to People magazine last year. She even dedicated her 2010 self-help dating book to him “for being a great partner and my real truth. I love you.”

In the book, The Day I Shot Cupid – Hello, My Name is Jennifer Love Hewitt and I’m a Love-aholic, she expresses her frustration with being constantly labeled a serial dater. “It’s like a bad KICK ME sign on my back. What does it mean? That I date men and kill them? Yes, I have dated a lot, not on purpose, by the way. I would have loved to have met my soul mate in fourth grade and never looked back.”

She thought she found her soulmate in 2005 when she met Scottish actor Ross McCall. The couple dated for two years before getting engaged, but split a little more than a year later. Of that love connection she told People, “it’s the first time I’ve ever been in a relationship where you don’t have to try.”

But we hope this new relationship goes the distance. Ironically enough, Hewitt was first spotted showing off her new man at Dodge’s Rock and Roll Marathon in Los Angeles this past weekend where they ran in the race together. Whatever happens it will make for great material in her next book. That is if she doesn’t tell us about it first.

Source

“We’re crazy!” she joked to Us when asked why they decided to do the race together. “We are really excited about all the charities involved, and we heard the Rock ‘n’ Roll marathon was really fun and just sort of silly and a great way to stay in shape.”

Hewitt, 31, told Us she met Beh “through friends at a dinner party” after splitting with her Ghost Whisperer costar Jamie Kennedy.

What first attracted him? “Her eyes, her beauty,” Beh told Us.

“My running ability!” Hewitt then joked, prompting Beh to add, “Yes, her running ability! It was her eyes, and really, we just laugh the whole time.”

Added Hewitt, “We laugh a lot … he’s hilarious!”

Beh told Us that he has even read her relationship advice book, The Day I Shot Cupid, which Hewitt told Us she wrote because, “Everybody has been writing about my dating life forever. I decided it was time that I actually gave my own opinions on love and dating and all that stuff.”

Beh’s critique? “It’s very informative. I learned all I needed to know. When I first met her, I really was able to just map out all the things to do and not to do.”

Source

If all is right with the world, she’ll be nominated for her work as a rape victim in last week’s Law & Order: SVU…

“I think she will get an Emmy nomination,” L&O creator Dick Wolf told us this morning after his Los Angeles magazine Breakfast Conversation event at Kate Mantilini restaurant. “I think it’s one of the more amazing actor transformations that I’ve seen. She put herself onto a different level.”

We couldn’t agree more.

Source

Hewitt, 31, says her character in the movie — a mother and former small-town beauty queen — is left with no other choice.

“Her husband has been injured and out of work; her massage therapy job has been phased out; her kids need braces and their house is about to be foreclosed,” she said on Ryan Seacrest’s KIIS-FM radio show Monday. “So she answers an ad in the paper for a massage therapy position.”

Initially, her character likes the attention.

But “very quickly, her life sort of goes on a downward spiral, and I think she realizes that there was probably more of the attention she was getting than she needed,” said the actress.

After doing the movie, Hewitt said she realized that the reason some women become prostitutes is “two-fold.” Not only is it helping them survive tough economic times, “it’s sort of helping them in their personal lives as well,” she said.

Some women might not be getting the sexual attention they need at home and “are kind of going out and going, ‘Well, we have needs just like men do, and if men can go out and get their needs met, we will too.’” she said. “It’s kind of crazy.”

On Saturday, UsMagazine.com spoke to Hewitt at the AZURE Luxury pool in the Palazzo Resort Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

She called the role her “raciest part” yet.

What else is in the works for the actress?

“Nothing at the moment,” she told Us. “I’m working on some TV stuff, looking into some film stuff, everything like that. Not really sure where I’m going to land just yet.”

Anyone special?

“No, nobody special,” she told Us. “Just family. I’m single for the moment.”

From US Magazine

The 31-year-old actress recently admitted that her mother took her to task for playing sexy ladies and forcing every red-blooded American to notice her body:

“[My mom] was very supportive. But then a week ago she was like, ‘So, let’s review the last year, shall we? For 15 years people have been talking about your boobs in the press. You wrote about your woo-ha in a book and now you’re playing a crack-ho on TV.’ I was like, ‘Yeah…’ So she was like, ‘Can we do an animated movie next? Can you play Cinderella on Broadway or something?’ I was like, ‘OK, I’ll clean it up, right after this one, I promise!’”

The former Party of Five actress will star in the upcoming made-for-TV movie, The Client List, in which she plays a desperate mother who turns into a high-end prostitute to support her family. Not sure if that role really classifies as being a “crack-ho,” per Mrs. Hewitt’s description, but we aren’t here to argue semantics.

From Celebuzz

1. I watch two episodes of Friends every night before bed.
2. I hate to fly alone.
3. I just started drinking coffee this year.
4. I’m obsessed with making mix CDs.
5. I have a fear of big birds.
6. I love to salsa dance.
7. I always try to find a Dairy Queen everywhere I travel.
8. I have three toes the same size.
9. I can’t stand cooked carrots.
10. I didn’t get my driver’s license until I was 20. And I didn’t learn to ride a bike until I was 29!
11. I used to have a pet pig.
12. I own a boat and love to drive it.
13. I make really good onion dip.
14. I once paid a company to make it snow in my mom’s yard on Christmas.
15. I can do tricks on roller skates.
16. Growing up, I wanted to be a cashier at a grocery store.
17. I’ve been to Japan 15 times.
18. I love to paint.
19. I know how to do card tricks.
20. I’ve never been on a big roller coaster.
21. I love to play poker.
22. I love dirty jokes.
23. I love afternoon tea in different cities.
24. I fall asleep with the TV on.
25. I read my horoscope every day.

“I don’t have scales any more and I don’t weigh myself,” she said. “I would urge women everywhere to throw out their scales.

“Even when I go to the doctor’s office I’m like, ‘Don’t tell me’. Just write it on your chart and don’t tell me.’ It does you no good to know.”

Jennifer recently urged young women not to obsess about weight.

“When I meet young girls, I’m always like, ‘Just do me one favor,’” she said last month.

“Love what you look like right now — and remember I said it 10 years from now because it’s the greatest gift I can give.”

From Showbiz Spy

The 31-year-old stars in The Ghost Whisperer – which has just been cancelled after five seasons – playing Melissa Gordon, who can talk to ghosts, and a recent encounter made her question whether it’s more than just a TV show.

Jennifer revealed: “I’ve definitely had some weird experiences – I had something weird happen in my house two weeks ago.”

She explained: “I collect little miniature antique books and I had a bunch of them on this one shelf in my living room and I heard this really loud noise when I was upstairs in my bedroom. I came down and all the books were all over the floor and I was like ‘well that’s weird, but ok maybe… I don’t know’.

“So I gather the books back up and I put them back on the shelf and I go back upstairs and the second I go upstairs I hear this slamming noise again and all the books were on the floor again. I was like, ‘Alright, honestly, I was just with you all day at work, really you’ve got to come home with me too?’

“Then I realised that I was a normal person, me, just an actress, standing in my house, talking to someone who probably wasn’t there and there was obviously like a tilt problem with the book shelf and my books were on the floor and I was thinking it was a ghost and having a conversation with myself.

“I was like ‘maybe I should have a vacation or two?’.”

From The Press Association

The 31-year-old plays Melinda Gordon, who is able to speak to dead people, in the hit CBS show – which has just been cancelled after five seasons – and viewers often share their real-life encounters with her.

Jennifer revealed: “I have a lot of very unusual, incredibly emotional experiences with people where people will just come up to me and they’ll be like, ‘Can you just sit with me a second? I have to tell you my story because it had to do with the storyline last Friday night’ and then they’ll just start balling like, in the mall.”

She added: “Then I have other times when I have people who will just be convinced that there is a ghost attached to them and that I need to get it off of them, right there when I’m buying lettuce in the middle of the grocery store.

“It kind of goes from both spectrums, from really touching to really funny. People really think that Melinda Gordon is alive and well and out there ready to help!”

The actress revealed she tries to think what her character would do so she can help the people she meets.

She said: “I’ve had to learn the right thing to say because a lot of them are very emotional and they really need somebody to help. So I sort of have these unofficial medium cards in my purse that I can pass out to people with real medium information on it and I can say ‘why don’t you call this person and they will help you’.”

From The Press Association

“When I meet young girls, I’m always like, ‘Just do me one favor,’ ” she tells PEOPLE in its new issue. “Love what you look like right now – and remember I said it 10 years from now because it’s the greatest gift I can give.”

Having already witnessed first-hand how tough it can be to love your own figure – the 31-year-old spoke out against critics in December 2007 when unflattering photos of her on the beach surfaced – Hewitt says she first focused on getting a mind makeover.

“I just really worked on my mental part for a couple of weeks, got myself in a really good mindset,” she says, adding that she was “bummed out” and “had to get over the embarrassment of the photos.

Then, the Ghost Whisperer star decided to give up her beloved donuts and make time to squeeze in workouts during her busy schedule – to get healthier, but not slim down drastically.

“I think I’m a work in progress,” she admits. “[But] I feel it’s so much better than [it was] a year-and-a-half ago, and I feel like in another eight months, it’s going to be so much better than it is today.”

Even with her new-found confidence, the 5-foot-2-inch Hewitt, whose Lifetime movie The Client List airs July 19, still fesses up to dreaming about having a certain body type.

“I’d want to have Gisele Bundchen’s body. Even though she’s tall and skinny, she does have curves … and I think that’s hot,” says Hewitt. “Halle Berry also is kind of amazing.”

For more on Jennifer Love Hewitt – including her diet tricks, exercise secrets and (honest!) thoughts on plastic surgery – pick up this week’s PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday

From People

The actress, whose series Ghost Whisperer was recently cancelled by CBS, will play a prostitute in upcoming TV movie The List and then hopes to appear in a Broadway musical in New York, Teen Hollywood reports.

Speaking to E! Online, Hewitt said: “I’m looking at possibly doing Broadway. To be able to sing and dance will be fun.”

Hewitt recently said that she is not currently interested in starting a new relationship.

From Digital Spy

“I’m actually not looking for a man at the moment,” the actress, 31, told UsMagazine.com at Kari Feinstein’s MTV Movie Awards Style Lounge in Beverly Hills Thursday. “I am enjoying being by myself. I’m happy!”

After splitting with Ghost Whisperer costar Jamie Kennedy in March, the actress gave herself a makeover: she sported a chic bob (before later adding extensions in April) and got serious about her fitness.

“I do the elliptical every day for at least 45 minutes. I don’t enjoy it, but I do it,” she tells Us. “I love doing the spin bike. It’s a great way to burn 500 calories or something every time you do it, which is amazing.”

So how does the svelte star — who admits to indulging in K Poppers from Pizza Hut — stay motivated during her workout sessions?

“I watch America’s Next Top Model and go, ‘Okay, I know if I stay on this an extra 15 minutes, I will look like that girl!’” she tells Us. “I don’t however, when I get off, but it inspires me.”

From US Magazine

“Elizabeth Taylor taught me that after you get ready for the day – after you do your hair and makeup – you’re supposed to take a hot bath because it brings out your inner glow,” the Ghost Whisperer star tells me. “I always do that before I go out.”

Turning 31 inspired her to change up her style.

“I’m trying to be a bit more glam this year — even my lingerie choices tend to be a little more glamorous, just from within,” she admits. “I tend to go pretty comfortable. I’m a jeans and t-shirts kind of girl. I dress casual for comfort.”

The actress has been linked to Jenny McCarthy’s ex John Asher, 39, after amicably splitting from co-star Jamie Kennedy.

The Day I Shot Cupid author shares her advice for single gals in NYC and beyond.

“Be careful,” she says. “Run for your life. Drink lots of cosmos, go to the spa and have really close girlfriends.”

From OK! Magazine

This is what you won’t find in the magazine.

Last time you were mistaken for another celebrity?
Oh my gosh, I used to get mistaken as Alyssa Milano and Soleil Moon Frye all the time when I was little. I would sign autographs as them [laughs]. I thought it was really cool [laughs]. I was famous as them before I was famous as me [laughs].

Last time you lied?
This morning, when someone asked me if I was tired, and I said no [laughs].

Last time you felt guilty?
Probably when I bought Christian Louboutin shoes. I feel like I should’ve spent that money on maybe a family member or someone else, but I spent it on me [laughs].

Last time you felt envious?
Anytime I see a picture of Gisele Bundchen, because she looks like Gisele Bundchen [laughs]. We all wish we could look like that.

Last time you saw your Kids, Incorporated co-star Stacy “Fergie” Ferguson?
The last time I saw Fergie was on an airplane to Hawaii. It was great. It was awesome. She was sitting there, and I tapped her on the shoulder and we had a big hug, spoke for a moment and then went back to our flights.

Last chore or errand you did?
The last errand I did was right before I made the trip here. I went and got mini hairsprays for traveling.

Last time you spoiled your cat?
My cat, Earl Grey, is spoiled every day. I always make sure there are lots of treats for him.

Last time you felt competitive?
I always feel competitive. I grew up in a family where we’re all very competitive. Healthy, but competitive. I was playing poker, and I felt competitive with my mom [laughs]. I won.

From OK! Magazine

Preface
Okay, so why did I, an actress in her thirties, decide to write a book on dating? Well, leave it to Cabo Wabo! I had a massive broken heart, so I hopped on the plane with my mom, aunt, and a bunch of friends. We found ourselves at this beautiful home overlooking the ocean and like most meetings of the female brain, talking about men. I was so intrigued, the age groups, types of women, lifestyles were all so different, but the message was the same. Dating is hilarious and awkward as hell. Relationships are difficult, beautiful, and confusing. And love is somehow worth it all. It was like pen and paper had to be used at that moment, so I took all the things we were talking about and started writing. Of course, I added my own funny comments to them, because if you can’t laugh you won’t make it.

At dinner that night I presented my romance thought pages on the table, hoping to ease any past pain, laugh about the hours of life lost on bad dates, and show that we are all the same. They loved it (the tequila helped)! As I wrote them, healing began for me as well.

At the end of our great trip, I went home with a new thought. What if this is why I went through all my dating crap? Maybe I’m supposed to be the kindred spirit of millions of women out there who are just like me. And there it was, the new relationship that I would begin would be with me, my past, my present, my laughter, my pain, and most important, all of you.

Introduction
This, for me, is the perfect place to start. Although I was actually born on February 21, there was a chance that I would come a week earlier, on February 14. That’s right, Valentine’s Day. I refused to believe until I was ten or eleven years old that Valentine’s Day was not actually created for me. Why? Because my name is Love! My mom named me Love and almost gave birth to me on Valentine’s Day. Hello? I was born to be a hopeless romantic. It’s worked well for me so far, or so I thought. And that brings us to now. This is the most eye-opening and slightly depressing part of the book, so let’s get it over with. What I am about to tell you will include shocking details, lies, and murder. Continue to read at your own risk.

Okay, here it goes. On a cold day, with a little rain falling on the windows (who am I, Agatha Christie?), in the most gorgeous light of the afternoon, I sat at my computer, wondering what I could say today that would have some real value to those of you kind enough to read this book. I decided to turn to my faithful friend Cupid for some help. You know, Cupid (said with little kid voice) — cute little guy, kind of like a baby and a man all in one. The little man in a diaper who finds us true love, shoots our dream man with an arrow, bring him to us, plays the violin, and helps us live happily ever after. That Cupid. (Back to my own voice.) What I found next would forever change me. What the hell to my Googling Cupid eyes should appear, but the TRUTH!

Cupid was actually a scorned lover. A person so hurt that he made poison arrows to shoot at people that would hopefully destroy their chance for love, because misery loves the company of a tiny man in diapers. He was an evil little s**t, not a cute baby with magic arrows waiting to point at our perfect companion and bring up love’s every happiness. Lock your doors. Cupid is not a good guy! Suddenly my love life flashed before my eyes: all the Valentine’s Days, the arrows I shot in my mind toward the dream guy in front of me, the hours I spent thinking Cupid would make it better. And for what? He was just as depressed and hurt as I was. And P.S. — he didn’t want to use his powers for good. It begs the thought — we saw a little man in a diaper shooting arrows and thought that meant true love?

After an hour of seriously doubting my stock in Hallmark, I knew exactly what I had to do. I HAD TO SHOOT CUPID! I had to believe in my mind that there could be romance without him. Maybe not the kind with symphonies and floating hearts (although that kind stabbed me in the back more than a few times), but something I could create with another person that could be all our own. Romantic comedies are there to give us dreams and butterflies, but what we can create in our own lives could be not only better but real.

So I did it! I SHOT HIM! This would always be … THE DAY I SHOT CUPID. I let my mind kill all its previous romantic ideas and believe what would come next would be greater.

As I write this, I am only two weeks into this “transformation.” I’m not gonna lie, I have had a few “everything is changing” panic attacks, but I also feel like I’m on the brink of real growth. I ask myself now what romance really is to me. What a man needs to do and what I would want to do for him. I am learning, and not depressed by the way, how to create my own fireworks and rapid heartbeat. I’m suddenly not as let down by everyday romantic screwups because the only thing to live up to is organic, from within, not a list of dos and don’ts given to me by romantic icons who aren’t real.

At first glance you may be thinking … Jaded? Bitter? Hurt too much? But let’s change those thoughts to something more productive, like Strong, Realistic, and Grown-Up. Let’s never again rely on someone or some myth to bring us happiness or love. Let’s try it ourselves. Let’s make our own paths and believe that what the universe has for us is perfect. Let’s go out and find the love we always wanted but this time with our feet planted on the ground, our inner sparkle as the arrows, and the belief that love does happen for all of us. By the way, if you see a man in diapers, keep walking!

From MSNBC

“I don’t think anyone truly enjoys dating,” the actress and author of The Day I Shot Cupid said Tuesday on NBC’s Today show. “I’m better in relationships than I am going out with one guy on a Monday and then another one on a Wednesday and another one on a Saturday. It feels weird to me. So, I tend to spend time with people and have boyfriends versus dates.”

Asked why she hasn’t found Mr. Right yet, the actress, 31 – who recently split from her Ghost Whisperer costar Jamie Kennedy – replied, “I think that’s how love works. I think it’s timing, and figuring out who you are.”

Not necessarily referring to Kennedy, 39, she added: “I think it takes a lot of frogs to find your prince.”

The two actors are still working together on the CBS show, and Hewitt says it hasn’t been too terrible. “I think maybe earlier in my life that would’ve been a harder thing to do,” she said. “But with age comes growing up, and it’s been OK. It’s been fine.”

Hewitt also spoke about her weight controversy in 2007, saying she moved on from it pretty quickly, thanks to a little help from her friends. “People came out in support, and that part was really lovely,” she said.

As for her future in love, Hewitt – who was once engaged to Scottish actor Ross McCall – says she still has some self-discovery left to do first.

“I think every relationship you’re in teaches you something different about yourself,” she said. “And I feel like, at 31, there’s still so much more I need to know about myself before I can completely give the perfect version of me to someone.”

From People

“It wasn’t ideal timing,” the 31-year-old actress admits, laughing. “Here’s my relationship book and I’m single.”

Still, she has gone ahead with the publicity tour for “The Day I Shot Cupid: My Name is Jennifer Love Hewitt and I’m a Love-Aholic.” And she’s embracing one of its lessons: Allow yourself 72 hours to wallow after a breakup. Then move forward.

“Put your big girl pants on and move on,” Hewitt tells The Associated Press. “Seventy-two hours is an appropriate time. After that you start to smell and your friends don’t want to talk to you. … It doesn’t mean it fixes your feelings or takes away the sadness. You should just start to go, ‘I’m OK.’”

The book also includes these tips: Accept that men will always check out other women. Guys hate to spoon. And one shouldn’t be overzealous with a new significant other.

There’s even a section written by Kennedy himself, who assures women that most guys like their girls curvy, not stick-thin.

Hewitt includes personal anecdotes, such as when she made his-and-her toiletry kits for a guy she was dating. She thought it was cute; he found it scary.

The book also sets the record straight on parts of Hewitt’s relationship history, which has been played out in the press.

“My dating life has been written about really since I was 15 … so this book is my way of saying, ‘No, this is who I am and this is what I’ve really thought about that, and these are the things that I’ve done that maybe you didn’t read about.”

Despite her recent difficulties, Hewitt says there wouldn’t be, say, Shakespeare without love-aholics like herself.

“Dreaming about romance is not any different than having a vision board, which is the big thing out there that you’re supposed to do … to put it out there in the universe.”

From ABC News

Jennifer Love Hewitt is thirty one years old, and the years somehow have been both kind and difficult. Jennifer Love Hewitt comfortably inhabits that twilight area of American celebrity, which is to say she is not an A-List celebrity but would never be considered a B-Lister either; she is far too adorable and lovable for that.

Appearing on The Today Show on Tuesday morning to promote her book, The Day I Shot Cupid: Hello, My Name Is Jennifer Love Hewitt and I’m a Love-aholic , Love Hewitt still radiates that sweet, wholesome girl next door look and image that everybody wants to protect, even though she has also dated an uncouth rock star in John Mayer and been roasted by the press for appearing less than perfect in a 2007 candid bikini shot.

As a star through the years on the underrated Party of Five television show and then a sexpot in the movie I Know What You Did Last Summer, Love Hewitt has always been that girl that people more hate to love than love to hate.

But Love Hewitt is now growing out of her twenties and it shows; but in a positive sense. She is gaining rave reviews for her work as Melissa Gordon on the CBS show The Ghost Whisperer. In it, she plays a woman that regularly communicates with ghosts; it may be Love Hewitt’s most realistic and mature work to date.

And now, ironically enough, Hewitt Love publishes her book on love as she is fresh off of a break up with yet another boyfriend, this time her Ghost Whisperer co-star Jamie Kennedy.

What is not clear is how much being single bothers Love Hewitt. At an age when many are thinking of settling down and finding a life long mate, she has seemingly taken each of the bumps along the way in stride. Even the title of her book, incorporating ‘Love-aholic’, seems to poke fun at the perception that she has a challenge staying in any relationship for long, but keeps coming back for more.

What Love Hewitt does seem to be doing very well is settling into her post ‘young lady’ phase and moving with grace, talent and beauty to the next phase of her professional life, regardless of what may lay in store for her in her personal one.

From Associated Content

The actors began dating early last year following the break down of Hewitt’s engagement to Ross McCall.

Hewitt and Kennedy confirmed they were going their separate ways last week but the actress insists they are still close.

She tells People.com, “(It was) a mutual decision and we’ve parted as friends. There’s no anger, there’s no upset, there’s no enemies.”

Hewitt credits their friendship prior to their romance for helping to make the transition from lovers back to pals an easy one.

She adds, “It’s been totally fine. It’s really a testament to who he is and to who I am. We’re both grown-ups.”

But the 31 year old admits she’s not thrilled about returning to life as a single gal: “I don’t like to go out to clubs and party. I’m not into ‘Let’s go out with one guy on a Monday and another guy on a Wednesday’ – that’s just not me. I’m a relationship kind of girl. I like a twosome. Some people get excited about being single. I don’t.”

From Teen Hollywood

“I don’t like to go out to clubs and party. I’m not into ‘Let’s go out with one guy on a Monday and another guy on a Wednesday’ – that’s just not me,” Hewitt, 31, tells PEOPLE. “I’m a relationship kind of girl. I like a twosome. Some people get excited about being single. I don’t.”

Hewitt and her Ghost Whisperer costar Jamie Kennedy, 39, quietly split recently after a year together.

It was “a mutual decision, and we’ve parted as friends,” says Hewitt. “There’s no anger, there’s no upset, there’s no enemies.” Hewitt adds that the pair’s pre-existing friendship has made it easy to transition to working together as exes: “It’s been totally fine. It’s really a testament to who he is and to who I am. We’re both grown-ups.”

New Book
Ironically, the split comes just as The Day I Shot Cupid, Hewitt’s new book offering advice and wisdom on dating and relationship hits bookstores. Subtitled Hello, My Name is Jennifer Love Hewitt and I’m a Love-aholic, the book, out March 23, includes Hewitt’s own dating horror stories, admissions about her fantasy engagement rings (she’s been visiting the same store since age 12 to try them on) and advice on everything from getting over breakups to dieting and cellulite.

It also includes a chapter written by her then-boyfriend Kennedy in which he rhapsodizes about women’s curves – derrieres in particular, saying he prefers “junko in the trunko” and calling big butts “sexy, strong and yummy.”

Hewitt says she has “no idea” when she’ll be ready to date again, though she plans to re-read her own book for advice (and is already at work penning a follow-up).

Independent Working Woman
“Back in the shark tank!” she jokes. “I never said in the book that I knew how to be in the perfect relationship. I say in my book I want to be the readers’ kind spirit out in the dating world. And now, more than ever, I am.”

So for now is Hewitt content to be an independent working woman, or does the self-described “hopeless romantic” still yearn to find true love?

“Both,” she says. “I want to be an independent woman who falls in love, finds a great partner for her lifetime, has kids and kind of does it all. I’d like to have it all.”

For exclusive excerpts from her book and more on Hewitt – including her dating dos and don’ts, what she loves – and doesn’t – about her body, and her breakup with Jamie Kennedy – pick up a copy of PEOPLE on newsstands Friday

From People