San Diego Reader

Brett Ratner has resigned as director of the 2012 Oscars. And while you'll read various accounts of why and how Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences President Tom Sherak and his nonagenarian Board of Directors went from supporting an embattled artist to putting a Help Wanted ad in Variety, a source close to both The Big Screen and the AMPAS Florist & Hairdresser Division gives us the real scoop.

"Honey, it all comes down to one admission from the Rat-man during his astonishing interview with Howard Stern: 'I do jerk off a lot.' You and I both know that the entire point of the Oscars is to provide that particular service to the Beautiful People on the screen. If a director is taking care of himself, he's not taking care of the talent, and you wind up with Snow White singing 'Proud Mary.' Nobody wants that."