Looks like Avril Lavigne’s Malaysian concert will have a My Happy Ending after all.

After rumors that the conservative Malaysian government banned the scheduled Aug. 29 concert for being “too sexy,” Lavigne told MTV News that the show will definitely go on.

“I’ve actually been approved by the government to play a show,” Lavigne said on Thursday. “I’ve already sold 10,000 tickets there, so I will be going to put a concert on for the fans.”

The Malaysian government faced particular pressure from an Islamic opposition party, which cited Lavigne’s racy image and expressed concern that Lavigne’s concert date on her “Best Damn Tour” was scheduled just two days before Malaysia’s upcoming independence day celebrations.

Lavigne is not the first to have a brush with the conservative Malaysian government: Gwen Stefani was forced to cover up her famous midriff in Malaysia last year, and the Pussycat Dolls were fined in 2006 for violating Malaysia’s strict indecency codes.

Avril Lavigne apparently is as affected as much as anybody by the downturn in the housing market.

After two deals fell through, reports Forbes.com, the rocker, 23, has marked down the price for her Beverly Hills mansion, to $5.8 million.

The original price tag a year ago was $6.9 million.

The home is inside a gated community at the top of Mulholland in the Hollywood Hills, with a pool and tennis court on the grounds.
- Stephen M. Silverman

Avril Lavigne has cancelled two concerts on doctor’s

orders. And now the singer is taking to her blog to explain and apologize to

her fans.

“I have been sick this whole tour, and now I have lost my voice,” she writes

in a blog entry posted

Thursday. “I have never canceled a show in my whole career and just had to

for the first time ever. This sux!”

coming down with acute laryngitis. “My voice is so shot,” she writes. We

drove home yesterday and I went to my throat doctor. He stuck a camera down

my throat….ewwww, I gagged!!! It was kinda funny though.”

The singer reveals that she almost pulled out of an April 29 show at Las

Vegas’s the Pearl at the Palms- but soldiered on. Writes Lavigne: “I made it through…..barely! I

still went on stage in Vegas and gave it my all.”

After her Las Vegas concert, Lavigne and an entourage of 20 threw an afterparty at MOON

Nightclub.

Lavigne’s tour is expected to resume May 3 in Anaheim, Calif.

Hilary Duff may have been in show business for a decade, but she’s never gotten used to tangling with her fellow celebutantes.

“It’s hard to find people who don’t feel like they’re in competition with you,” she tells Allure in its May issue.

But while Duff, 20, may try to stay out of the fray, she can’t help but chat - a little, anyway - about some of her peers.

• On Lindsay Lohan: “Supposedly, I stole Lindsay Lohan’s boyfriend %26#91;Aaron Carter.%26#93; We were, like, 13! And I’ve never stolen anyone’s boyfriend! I don’t know how you do that! . . . She was talking about it and I wasn’t. It made us both look bad and put up a big weirdness. Really she was just a girl my age. We are fine now, by the way.”

• On Miley Cyrus: “We don’t have each other’s phone numbers. But when she meets me, she’s excited. It’s cute - I see a lot of myself in her.”

• On Avril Lavigne: “I said something about how she didn’t like her fans dressing like her, and how she should appreciate that because it’s a compliment. She called me a goody-goody %26#91;Lavigne called Duff a ‘mommy’s girl’ in Newsweek%26#93; Everyone is trying to prove who they are, and their position. So, I’m ‘the good girl.’ She’s ‘the bad girl’ or ‘the party girl.’ Sarah Jessica Parker doesn’t take her clothes off, but she’s not a ‘good girl.’ %26#91;Adult actors%26#93; don’t get tagged like we do.”

Two songwriters who had accused Avril Lavigne of plagiarizing their song now say she did nothing wrong.

Tony Dunbar and James Gangwer had filed a lawsuit claiming the hit “Girlfriend,” by Lavigne and writing partner Luke Gottwald on her album The Best Damn Thing, was ripped off from the 1979 song “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend” by Dunbar and Gangwer’s new wave group the Rubinoos.

But in a statement Tuesday, Dunbar and Gangwer said: “We are satisfied that any similarities between the two songs resulted from Avril and Luke’s use of certain common and widely used lyrics. We therefore completely exonerate Avril and Luke from any wrongdoing of any kind in connection with the claims made by us in our lawsuit.”