John Mayer was having a good time on the red carpet at Alicia Keys’ Annual Keep a Child Alive Black Ball Thursday night. Must be because somebody’s got his back.

He started off the night by playfully grabbing the microphone of a reporter from the Tyra Banks Show to announce his own “talk show is going to be called John!”

And while the singer may be joking about his next career move, he had some serious words about girlfriend Jennifer Aniston. “It’s really nice to have somebody in life have your back,” Mayer told PEOPLE. “That girl knows me … so whether I go to bed alone or not, to have somebody who knows you in this world, that’s a really nice thing.”

If Mayer were to have a show, he said, “it would be nice to go back to a form of entertainment that doesn’t involve judging and criticizing. I’d like to entertain people with their phones down. It’s time to watch TV and be entertained by great artists without having to have a say in it.”

Entertain he did! Mayer got into a friendly bidding war with Queen Latifah over a lithograph during a live auction at the benefit. Fortunately, the charity was the big winner. There was an identical lithograph available so each star paid $100,000.

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Jennifer Aniston has nothing but compliments for her Marley %26 Me costar Owen Wilson.

“Owen Wilson is so divine in this film,” the actress tells the L.A. Times. “I’ve never seen him play a part like this. He was a man; he was a husband; he was a father.”

In a reference to some of Wilson’s personal struggles, Aniston adds, “I feel like, how brave of him, to walk through the year that he walked through.”

Wilson was hospitalized in 2007 for an apparent suicide attempt. Marley %26 Me, due out Dec. 25, is one of his first roles since the incident.

Her other costar, a yellow lab named Clyde, was not as kind. “I walked onto the set and put my sweater and my bag down on the couch, and that dog leapt up onto the couch, grabbed my sweater and started ripping it. The set was a toy,” she said.

Aniston, 39, said her films either have a great working environment or a great finished product, but this one was both. “When you actually can have %26#91;the finished film%26#93; be as fantastic and fulfilling as the experience itself was, it’s called a home run. A creative, emotional home run. Those moments don’t happen that often.”

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Jennifer Aniston stopped by a Los Angeles elementary school as a special guest speaker, but she wasn’t there to discuss Hollywood.

“She talked about water things,” says Alvaro Cortes, assistant superintendent of Extended Day Programs at the L.A. Unified School District. “She talked to the students about water nutrition and why it’s so important for all of us.”

Aniston, 39, a spokeswoman for Smartwater, a nutrient-enriched bottled water, stayed at Cahuenga Elementary School on Thursday for about an hour and answered questions as part of an after-school program.

Aniston replied: “I understand! I got that message from my principal when I was going to school, too!”

John Mayer spent his birthday with a very special friend: Jennifer Aniston.

The couple, who broke up in August, reconnected last weekend in New York, and were then spotted together in L.A. celebrating Mayer’s 31st birthday on Wednesday night.

The bash was held at the Grand Havana Room, a members-only restaurant and cigar club.

After stopping by a party for pal David Arquette’s new clothing line, called Propr, Aniston, 39, met up with the group, staying past midnight to ring in Mayer’s birthday.

“They seemed to be having a great time,” a source tells PEOPLE. “They were sitting next to each other. They’re a very good-looking couple and seemed happy together.”

It was their second outing in L.A. this week, following a dinner with friends the night before at the Sunset Towers.

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After spending time together in New York last weekend, Jennifer Aniston and John Mayer turned up in Los Angeles for a night out with friends.

Aniston, 39, and Mayer, 30, and three pals arrived late Tuesday night at the Sunset Tower Hotel for dinner at the Tower Bar, where Aniston nibbled on a grilled chicken salad while chatting with the group.

“They left out the back of the hotel and were very discreet,” says a source. “Jen was leading but John walked very closely behind her when they left.”

• Reporting by PERNILLA CEDENHEIM

Jennifer Aniston and John Mayer shared a dinner at New York City’s romantic Il Mulino last weekend, sources tell PEOPLE.

“They looked like they were having a fantastic time,” says one observer of the Saturday night dinner. A source close to John adds, “They were hanging out this weekend.”

Aniston, 39, in New York on business, dined with Mayer, 30, on oysters, ravioli with mushrooms and black truffles and fish.

The night before, Aniston and Mayer joined four others for a dinner at Mantra restaurant in Boston.

“They were friendly but regular,” says a restaurant staffer. “We wouldn’t have noticed them if someone hadn’t called ahead. … They just came in with their group and sat in the hookah bar and drank and ate.”

The actress returned to Los Angeles on Monday.

Not everyone remains convinced a re-match might be a good thing. Says one pal: “If they are back together, Jen is not bragging about it to her friends.”

• Reporting by HITHA PRABAKHAR

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Jennifer Aniston will play a “free-spirited, Fatal Attraction-like stalker” when she guest stars on 30 Rock, NBC announced Tuesday.

As Claire Harper, Aniston will be Tina Fey’s former roommate who shows up in New York and attaches herself to Alec Baldwin.

“Jennifer is not only incredibly lovely to have around, she also has what the young people would call ‘mad skills.’ We’re very excited that she’s joining us,” said Fey, who is the creator, executive producer and star of 30 Rock, which returns on Oct. 30.

Looks like some new Friends in the making: Jennifer Aniston dined with director Woody Allen and his wife Soon Yi Tuesday night at the West Hollywood Italian eatery Madeo.

A relatively unfamiliar figure out West, Allen - who shared a booth in the back of the restaurant with Aniston, Soon-Yi and another gentleman - was barely noticed by the other patrons, while Aniston appeared to keep her profile low.

Came time to leave, the actress exited through the back of Madeo, while the Allens encountered the 30 or so paparazzi out front. Must’ve made the filmmaker feel like he was back in New York.
- Abby Stern and Stephen M. Silverman

Though John Mayer and Jennifer Aniston were decidedly mum about their romance, the singer is opening up about their breakup.

“There’s no lying, there’s no cheating, there’s no nothing,” Mayer told reporters Saturday about his split with Aniston after working out at an Equinox Gym in New York’s SoHo neighborhood.

So what went wrong? “People are different, people have different chemistry,” said Mayer, who appeared emotional, nervous and sad. “I ended a relationship to be alone, because I don’t want to waste somebody’s time if something’s not right.”

Sources confirmed that the duo, whose whirlwind romance began in April, mutually decided to split earlier this week.

Since the breakup, Aniston and Mayer have settled into their separate lives on different sides of the country.

Jennifer Aniston, showing no outward signs of grief over her breakup with John Mayer, got a pleasant surprise this week when she ran into Friends pal Courteney Cox at an L.A. restaurant.

“It was a pretty amazing scene. Jen was sitting at a table inside and then suddenly Courteney Cox walked in,” says a fellow diner at the Sunset Towers hotel’s restaurant Thursday night. “They were pretty surprised and excited to run into each other.”

Both appeared to be having business meetings over dinner, the diner says.

“Jen looked incredible,” says the diner. “Let me put it this way, it made me doubt the breakup story, because there is no way she was blue in any way. She was really happy … There was no hint of any problems.”

Aniston has been spending time at her home in the Hollywood Hills, where she was visited several times by friend and yoga instructor Mandy Ingber.

Mayer, after arriving in New York on Thursday morning on a break from his current tour, kept an even lower profile. He is due back on tour in Charlotte, N.C., on Aug. 19.

The couple, who had been dating since April, split mutually, according to a friend of Mayer.

“They were going in different directions,” says the friend. “He’s at the height of his career and very focused. Different things are important to them both right now.”

• Reporting by BRYAN ALEXANDER and MARY MARGARET