Tattle: This just in - Willie Nelson gets a haircut

BIG NEWS in the world of entertainment yesterday as country- music legend

Willie Nelson

cut his hair.

Willie's lengthy, reddish pigtails - as if Crystal Gayle and Pippi Longstocking merged their locks - have been one of his signature features since he was a young crew-cut crooner.

Spokeswoman Elaine Schock said of Willie's waist-length hair: "There's a lot of maintenance."

Ellen Disc-Generes

After a season judging singers on "American Idol," Ellen DeGeneres announced on her show yesterday that she is starting a label called eleveneleven.

Ellen's first act will be 12-year-old YouTube sensation Greyson Chance, whom Ellen recently fawned over when he performed

Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi."

Ellen, the music business is in the toilet.

You should get behind a growth industry like providing news content for the Internet.

* Elton John was expected to be the

highlight of Morocco's biggest music festival last night, despite calls by the country's main Islamist party to shelve the British singer because of his homosexuality.

The public spat between organizers for the Mawazine Festival and the Justice and Development Party, or PJD, illustrates the growing rift between Morocco's Western-leaning authorities and the more conservative Muslim movements that are on the rise there.

"This singer is famous for his homosexual behavior and for advocating it," said Mustapha Ramid, a leader and spokesman for the PJD.

"We're a rather open party, but promoting homosexuality is completely unacceptable," Ramid said, without listing the other groups his "rather open party" shuns.

Ramid said he feared the singer would "encourage the phenomenon" and be a bad influence for Morocco's youth.

While seemingly unable to acknowledge that there's a difference between promoting homosexuality and simply accepting it - Ramid makes it sound like Elton tries to recruit straights to turn gay - at least Morocco is allowing Elton to perform.

In Egypt, tentative plans to schedule Elton were canceled earlier this month. Mounir el-Wasimi, head of the Egyptian musicians union, warned against his possible visit because "he is a symbol of homosexuals in the world."

Actually, that would be Lady Gaga.

Tattbits

* Jack Nicholson will wave the

green flag at the start of this year's Indianapolis 500.

There's another thing to take off his bucket list.

* If you don't

watch Britain's "X Factor," you may not be aware of Cheryl Cole, but since she may soon break big in America, Tattle thought you should know she's filed for divorce from Ashley Cole, the soccer star who cheated on her.

The London Sun says Cheryl wants a quick, "clean break" so Ashley can concentrate on England's goal to win the World Cup, which kicks off June 12.

* A New York judge has dismissed a

lawsuit by two photographers who said they were shot at by bodyguards of Tom Brady and superdupermodel Gisele Bundchen at an April 2009 party in Costa Rica.

Justice Judith Gische said that Brady and Bundchen don't live in New York and that the suit doesn't belong there.

* Jesse James' father and former

stepmother are claiming in rather specific detail that Jesse's "Nightline" comments about dad beating him when he was a boy are nonsense.

Guess we can make this one more thing Jesse lied about.

* In Touch Weekly reports that after

two+ years of dating, Serena Williams and Common have broken up.

"They just grew apart," said a Common friend.

* According to the London Sun, Vic-

toria's Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley will replace Megan Fox in "Transformers 3."

This will not be a downgrade in the looks department.

More importantly, it allows Victoria's Secret to product tie-in with a line of Transformers bras.

They may start small but you'll be amazed how big they get.

Daily News wire services contributed to this report.

E-mail gensleh@phillynews.com.