People

By Julie Rawe

Q & A: Jeff Probst The tribe has spoken: Survivor's 13th season, set to begin Sept. 14, has drawn ire for grouping teams by race. Host Jeff Probst defends the choice. The show has divided previous teams by gender and age. Why separate by race?

The idea was born out of the criticism that we weren't ethnically diverse enough. We had to solve the problem by finding people from different ethnic groups. Then when we started interviewing those people, many of them kept bringing up their ethnic pride. That's where the idea to separate them came from.

And you knew this setup would offend a lot of people?

I look at it as this is the most ethnically diverse group ever seen on television. I don't believe you can go back to a show that's 80% white after doing this season.

Why do you think it's mostly whites who've tried out for the show in the past?

The answer could be as simple as Asian Americans don't see themselves on the show, so they don't watch and don't apply.

Minority recruits unfamiliar with Survivor had to watch old seasons?

We wanted to make sure they understand it's going to kick your ass. It's not fun to be hungry on Day 24. Hunger does not discriminate. MUSCULAR MUSIC

STEVEN SEAGAL is a man of many talents. The writer, director, producer and -- of course -- butt-kicking film star also sings and plays drums on his latest album, Mojo Priest. But he's proudest of his guitar skills. "You can't find another actor who can play guitar as good as me," he boasts. "Kevin Bacon, Keanu Reeves, Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner they're not even in my universe." His blues album features guest appearances by Bo Diddley and Pinetop Perkins as well as some new Seagal tunes, including one that ends with the lines: "I told her I can't have no more sass/ And from now on, she can talk to my ass." At least he's not bragging about his lyrics. HIS GREATEST LOVE OF ALL?

Did OSAMA BIN LADEN really watch MacGyver, rock to Van Halen and lust after WHITNEY HOUSTON? Those are some of the claims made in an autobiography -- published in February but overlooked until Harper's printed excerpts last week by Sudanese born novelist Kola Boof, who says she was bin Laden's mistress in 1996. Boof, who wrote two scripts for Days of Our Lives, says bin Laden called Houston a beautiful woman "brainwashed by American culture and her husband, Bobby Brown, whom Osama talked about having killed." "Nobody in the West," Boof laments, "believes me when I tell them this."

BACK IN THE FAST LANE First Look

JESSICA LANGE needs to get out more. Filmmaking is often "drudgery," the two time Oscar winner told TIME. "You're held prisoner in your trailer, and then you kinda drag yourself over to the set." Not so with her spunky new road movie, Bonneville, which premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. Her character hijacks two pals (KATHY BATES and, in the backseat, JOAN ALLEN) in a '66 Bonneville as she drives her husband's ashes to California to be buried next to his first wife. Why was that the most filmmaking fun Lange's had in a decade? "It had a kind of freedom to it," she says. And the convertible was pretty comfy too.