The Beat

For two people who just spent a lot of effort denying rumors they'd gotten secretly married, Anna Kournikova and Sergei Fedorov (below) were a conspicuous couple last week. On Aug. 8 they dropped in at the South Beach restaurant B.E.D., where they kissed for the cameras and showed off his-and-hers rings. Later Kournikova consulted with Mama Love, the eatery's resident psychic healer and oracle. "I told her, 'I don't know what you do, but if you are aspiring to be a singer or actress, you are going to be a star,' " says Love. "She's going to be big, just maybe not in tennis." Mama also made a prediction: Anna will get pregnant. Andre and Steffi's kid may have some competition coming....

It seemed like such a good idea at the time. The Pro Football Hall of Fame wanted a big-name performer to do the national anthem at last week's Hall of Fame Game in Canton, Ohio. Enter Macy Gray, the Grammy-winning R&B singer who grew up in Canton. As a kid Gray had even briefly worked at the Hall as a tour guide. It all seemed storybook—until Gray pulled a Roseanne and stumbled through The Star-Spangled Banner, at one point singing, "Oh say can you see, by the twilight's last gleaming," before being drowned out by boos and a low-flying formation of jets. "I blanked," said Gray. "I've never stood in the middle of a football field with 25,000 people watching, with planes flying over me." Afterward, she apologized, saying, "I have total respect for that song."

...With all those brightly colored cars, NASCAR has always been a bit cartoonish, which is why it's only fitting that starting in September, NASCAR.com will begin showing The Kellys, an animated weekly series about a family of racers and their lives on the stock car circuit. Meanwhile, Warner Bros, is looking into producing Race Jam, a NASCAR-themed sequel to 1996's Space Jam. Jeff Gordon as Bugs Bunny's straight man? Hey, if MJ can do it....