Sideshow: Kendra Baskett: Nothing to hide

Clips of the

Kendra Leigh Baskett

sex tape are all over the Net, and, like toothpaste, the cinema vérité masterpiece (clearly influenced by the '66 classic

Battle of Algiers

) can't be squeezed back into the tube.

Kendra shot the tape when she was 19 with one Justin Frye. She tells Us Weekly she told her hubby, Eagles receiver Hank Baskett, all about the dirty deed before they married.

"I just wanted to get all of the skeletons out of the closet," says Kendra, who will turn 25 on Saturday. "He was mad, because it involved another guy. It was even hard for him to accept that I was in Playboy!" Guess Hank, who married the 115-pound, 5-foot-4, blue-eyed blonde on June 27, is a Leave It to Beaver kind of guy. For all its nastiness, the scandal, Kendra says, has brought the couple together. Hank, she says, "has been more of a listener. . . . We're more teammates now." Kendra has no regrets about the past - except for turning on that camera.

Country trio

Lady Antebellum

won group video of the year for "Need You Now" at the CMT Music Awards Wednesday night in Nashville.

"Tonight's all about the fans," Lady's Dave Haywood said. The fan-voted show honored Carrie Underwood for giving the performance of the year.

Host Kid Rock got the house in a frenzy when he welcomed surprise guest Hank Williams Jr., who eschews such dos. "Does anybody realize how hard it is to get Bocephus out of the house?" said Rock, using the singer's nickname.

A second surprise guest, Saturday Night Live's Kenan Thompson, took the stage dressed as Reba McEntire and sang a few bars of her songs. He had a cute to-do with the real Reba, who joined him on stage. For a list of winners: www.cmt.com/cmt-music-awards.

Nancy Reagan

did it. Diva

Dionne Warwick

made money off it. So why shouldn't sexpot

Brad Pitt

get some, too?

Brad tells Life & Style - in an !Exclusive! - that he has availed himself of the services of seer Ron Bard, touted as a "trusted adviser to government officials."

Says Brad, "He is very, very spiritual." Bard, who founded his psychic biz with Frasier's Kelsey Grammer, first infused Brad's Being with the manna that is his wisdom during the filming of Mr. & Mrs. Smith - the '05 film that led Brad to two-time then-wife Jennifer Aniston with his current psycho-pneumatic mate, Angelina Jolie.

Bard says he digs Brad: "He's gracious and generous, just such a great person."

I'm sure his bank account agrees.

In a surprise win, U.S. novelist

Barbara Kingsolver

bagged the Orange Prize for fiction Wednesday for her sixth novel,

The Lacuna

. The Orange Prize is a U.K. award given out each year for fiction written by a woman; Barb K gets a cool £30K ($44,000). The bookies were booked again: Kingsolver beat out U.K. writer

Hilary Mantel

, whose much-admired historical novel,

Wolf Hall

, had made her a favorite.

Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall

, presented Barb with the award at the Royal Festival Hall.

- John Timpane

Experts (well, me) claim the fallout from the

Madonna

-

Gwyneth Paltrow

breakup will be incalculable: Financial markets, world leaders, and, yes, even the Taliban, are bracing for the dawn of a new Dark Ages. Madge's rep still denies it all. . . .

President Obama

is writing the foreword for a new book by fellow Nobel laureate

Nelson Mandela

.

Conversations With Myself

, due Oct. 12, is a collection of diaries and letters by the former South African president. . . . People mag has spotted

Mary-Kate

and

Ashley Olsen

sporting very -

very

- neon hairdos in New York. Ash's locks are all yellow. Her sis opted for this sickly, pink, goopy hue. . . . Rolling Stone has crowned

Jay-Z

king of America. "He's had more Number One albums than

Elvis Presley

. He hangs with

Barack Obama

at the White House," the mag crows. . . .

Pope Benedict XVI

will be serenaded by

Susan Boyle

during his trip to Britain. The Scottish singing sensation is expected to sing Sept. 16 at an open-air papal Mass in Glasgow's Bellahouston Park.

Megastar

Jennifer Lopez

is all Jenny From the Block on a new billboard in Times Square. The ad, which features a pic of J-Lo as a li'l girl, touts the Kips Bay Boys and Girls Club in the Bronx, which J-Lo says helped her on her quest to become a star. "Be extraordinary," it reads. The ad campaign also features

Denzel Washington

,

Ashanti

, and

Mario Lopez

.

Some of the world's more, ahem,

experienced

beauties have beaten out the young hotties in one of the oddest top-10 celebrity beauty lists ever. Euro fashion house Wizard Jeans' list features such classic hotties as

Catherine Deneuve

(No. 5), 66;

Dame Helen Mirren

(No. 6), 64; and

Sophia Loren

(No. 10), 75. That cinematic triumfeminate have a combined age of 205. Hey, it makes a nice change from our otherwise youth-obsessed culture. The youngest gal on the list, which is based on annual worldwide media exposure, is 34 (

Charlize Theron

at No. 7). The average age is a perimenopausal 48. The top three are

Penélope Cruz

, 36;

Claudia Schiffer

, 39; and

Kristin Scott Thomas

, 50.

- John Timpane