Miami Heat President Pat Riley, team superstar Dwyane Wade and retired Heatster Alonzo Mourning at the Miami Children's Hospital Gala (Michele Sandberg/Special to Page2Live)

The sideshow of Dwyane Wade making it sorta official that he’s dating C-list actress Gabrielle Union didn’t distract from the true nature of Friday’s fund-raiser for the famed Miami Children’s Hospital, a traditional kickoff of SoFla’s social season.

More than 400 well-heeled South Floridians plunked down $1,000-per for the black tie at the Biltmore Hotel. They watched Wade getting inducted into the hospital’s Hall of Fame for his work with children. And they heard Oprah Winfrey protege Charice, a 17-year-old singer, perform in a voice that puts Whitney Houston’s to shame.

Hard to believe, but the gala was scaled down from last year, when the party on the floor of the AmericanAirlines Arena in downtown Miami featured pop superstar Beyonce.

Still, the guest list this time around wasn’t too shabby. It included Miami Heat head honcho Pat Riley and retired Miami Heat tall-head Alonzo Mourning, who flashed a photo of his month-old son Alijah to anyone who’d offer congratulations.

Organizers already knew they wouldn’t be able to equal last year’s loot, a SoFla-record $12 million. But they tried hard, with clever things like the $1,000 lemonade glass (Frangelico, Stoli, lemonade — and a diamond).

For a slew of pictures of the gala by Michele Sandberg, look below

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Ball chairman Juan Carlos Mas and wife Vivian

Miami Heat superstar Dwyane Wade and his mistress, C-list actress Gabrielle Union, have tried desperately to keep their relationship a secret, but this week has been a coming out party of sorts for them.

Either that, or they’re getting careless.

First, the lovebirds were spotted in full on canoodles in a private club level suite at Land Shark Stadium during Monday Night Football, and missed long stretches of an epic game.

Then last night, although she sneaked in through the back door, Wade took Union to the yearly Miami Children’s Hospital gala — one of Miami’s biggest social rendez-vous of the year.

Wade and Union at Friday's Miami Children's Hospital gala (Michele Sandberg/Special to Page2Live)

Wade and Union, who has a recurring role in the ABC scifi series FlashForward, giggled like school kids at the table of Miami philanthropist Juan Carlos Mas. They held hands under the table, when Wade didn’t rest his left paw on her lap or sneak an occasional peck.

Wade later in the evening pronounced himself honored to be inducted in the famed hospital’s hall of fame.

Who gets in?

Wade and Union at Friday's Miami Children's Hospital gala (Michele Sandberg/Special to Page2Live)

“People who have gone above and beyond for children,” said the hospital’s VP for marketing, Jamie Holt.

Wade joins in the hall the likes of songbird Beyonce, legendary University of Miami QB Jim Kelly and actress Kelly Preston (John Travolta’s missus).

Holt tells me Wade, who obviously forgot his dinner jacket on his way to the black-tie, first came on the fund-raisers’ radars two years ago. As Wade nursed a serious injury, he quietly spent hours watching Heat basketball on television with ill children treated at the facility. Holt also cited Wade’s own charity for at-risk children, Wade’s World, as another reason for his induction.

“I was floored when I was picked,” Wade said. “A lot of people helped me when I was growing up. Helping children is in my DNA.”

Wade’s nasty divorce from wife Shiovaughn, by the way, is still pending in a court in the couple’s native Chicago. Allegations in the case include that last season’s top scorer hasn’t been seeing much of his own three young boys and repeatedly cheated on Shiovaughn. Wade is also entangled in a legal battle with a business partner who claims he rented a pad in Miami Beach for Wade where sex parties took place.

Wade's publicist, Lisa Joseph, try to hide what the world knows (Michele Sandberg/Special to Page2Live)

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Odom

– He speaks! Newlywed (once all the paperwork is signed) Lamar Odom, a former Miami Heat star, finally opened up this morning about his wedding to reality TV’s Khloe Kardashian (Kourtney and Khloe Take Miami) over the weekend. Of course, the first question he was asked on ESPN 710 radio in Los Angeles was about the lovebirds’ monthlong courtship. “I’ve been a rock star . . . since I was 16,” the 29-year-old L.A. Laker said, “and doing it (getting hooked up) so fast, there was a lot of family members who couldn’t even agree. So I can imagine what it would look like to the outside person not involved in my life every day. . . I fell in love and the reason why I knew I was in love was because I knew how I felt when I wasn’t with that person or if she was no longer in my life . . . I never had a problem meeting women. I moved to Miami (in 2003, then he was traded to L.A. in the deal that brought Shaquille O’Neal to Miami) and we all know what that scene is like down there. But I finally met the one that I knew if I lost her, it would hurt the most.” Isn’t that sweet?

Damon on his phony directing gig (Courtesy YouTube)

– It’s Miami Beach’s Matt Damon like you’ve never seen him. One of the few level-headed people in showbiz, Damon flew off at Entourage star Adrian Grenier the other day, in a phony PSA that hit YouTube with a vengeance. The video, available below, is to promote Entourage’s season finale on HBO Sunday. Damon, as in Ocean’s Eleven and The Bourne Identity, pretends to direct Grenier in the filming of a clean water message when Damon starts lobbing four-letter bombs, too many of them to bleep. Particularly funny: Grenier’s co-star, Jeremy Piven, seems to be more embarrassed than anyone. Be advised, the video on the jump is for mature audiences only. Click (Read more…)

They were not exactly beaming, but Odom and Khloe did take the plunge Sunday (Courtesy X17online)

– Hard to believe, but former Miami Heat star Lamar Odom, 29, actually passed a wedding ring onto the chubby finger of 25-year-old mouthy reality TV star Khloe Kardashian Sunday, after a courtship that lasted a whole month! The lovebirds were reportedly haggling over a pre-nupt — then a post-nupt — at the last minute, but they ended up exchanging vows. The wedding, in a private home in Beverly Hills, took place before a roster of guests that read like a reality TV All Stars, including American Idol’s Ryan Seacrest, The Osbournes‘ Kelly Osbourne, funny girl Chelsea Handler, The Gastineau Girls‘ Brittny, The Insider’s Lara Spencer and smut peddler Joe Francis. According to MTV.com, the bride wore a strapless gown made by part-time Palm Beacher Vera Wang and had her sisters Kim and Kourtney, who co-star with Khloe on E!’s Keeping up with the Kardashians, as maids of honor. The 6-foot-10 Odom, who played for the Heat in 2003-04, brought his L.A. Lakers teammates, including Kobe Bryant, Ron Artest, Derek Fisher and Luke Walton, along with coach Phil Jackson. Cable’s E! reportedly footed the $1 million bill for the shindig.

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Shue

– It’s that time of year. The social season is upon us, with one of its South Florida kickoffs looming. The 20th Chris Evert Pro-Celebrity Classic, a fundraising tennis tourney showcasing several celebrities and pro tennis players, is scheduled for Nov. 7 and 8 at the Delray Beach Tennis Center. Among the celebs: Today host Matt Lauer; Olympic hero Bruce Jenner; movie star Elisabeth Shue (Leaving Las Vegas, Hollow Man); Fox & Friends hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade (daily on Fox News); and Natalie Cole. The singer, who’s recovering from a kidney transplant, won’t play tennis but will sing at the Nov. 7 gala at the Boca Raton Resort.

– Retired New York Mets star catcher Gary Carter, who lives in a $1 million home at PGA National in Palm Beach Gardens, was just spotted leaving Lexus of Palm Beach in West Palm Beach in a shiny new blue IS convertible. I’m told the Hall of Famer and former manager of the St. Lucie Mets spent close to 50 Gs on his new wheels.

The IS convertible

The Miami Dolphins lost Monday night – but they sure looked glamorous doing it.

There were searchlights. Limos. Celebrities. French champagne. Russian caviar.

The only thing missing was a 10-foot replica of an Oscar.

A year after the team couldn’t attract boldfacers even when they paid them, famous folks descended on the stadium like locusts to see the Fins take on the Indianapolis Colts.

Singers Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez try to work their way through the crowd to enter Land Shark Stadium on Monday night.

The celebs arrived one by one, stepping out of limos and onto an orange carpet where sweaty fans lined up six-deep.

For more of this story, and pictures, please look below or click (Read more…)

Kushner and Trump

– Hoping for yet another Trump wedding at Mar-a-Lago? Not this time! Ivanka Trump, daughter of Donald and Ivana Trump, isn’t going where her parents have been. While both The Donald and jet-setter Ivana were re-married to other people at Palm Beach’s Mar-a-Lago — he in 2005, and she last year — Ivanka plans on exchanging vows with wannabe publishing mogul Jared Kushner at her daddy’s Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J. The lovebirds are planning an Orthodox Jewish shindig on Oct. 25, according to the New York Post. The 525-acre property once belonged to sports car builder John DeLorean.

– The country must have its fill of Bernie Madoff. Book-sales trackers report that none of the four major Madoff books published last month has done well in stores, according to The AP. Sales for Madoff mistress Sheryl Weinstein’s tell-all, Madoff’s Other Secret, have barely topped 2,000. Jerry Oppenheimer’s Madoff With the Money tanked, with 1,000 copies sold. Andrew Kirtzman’s Betrayal is doing slightly better, with 3,000. And Erin Arvedlund’s Too Good To Be True is on top, with barely 5,000 copies. Arvedlund, a reporter who questioned Madoff’s investment methods years before the SEC, blamed the lack of interest on Wall Street fatigue. “The public is just weary of financial scandals,” she said.

– NBA champ Lamar Odom, who joined the L.A. Lakers two years ago in a trade by the Miami Heat, is said to be smitten with Kardashian clan’s Khloe. K2, a star of  Keeping up with the Kardashian and E!’s Khloe and Kourtney Take Miami, hooked up with the tallhead at a party thrown in Hollywood by NBA badboy Ron Artest, according to the entertainment website Hollyscoop. They’ve been attached at the hip since. Off-the-court, this is by far the most attention the self-effacing Odom has received in years. The Kardashians, meanwhile, seem to have a thing for famous athletes. Sister Kim recently broke up with NFL running back Reggie Bush.

Lamar and Khloe (Courtesy buzzPhoto)

– This could become a grudge match made in tabloid heaven. Surgically enhanced and impregnated octomom Nadya Suleman must be ticked off that fellow high-reproducer Kate Gosselin, the jilted star of Jon & Kate Plus 8, refused to appear on her Fox documentary, Octomom: The Incredible Unseen Footage. On the recently-aired show Suleman, who already had six kids before her octo-delivery, put the verbal smackdown on Gosselin. First, she called Gosselin’s popular TLC show “fake,” saying that Gosselin is desperate for attention. (Oh, boy! The crackpot’s calling the kettle black!) “It’s so staged,” Suleman said, “and she’s doing it to get people to take pictures of her. I’m not as attention-seeking.” ‘Course not. Suleman then had the gall to claim she’s got the hotter post-natal bod. “I feel like it’s cheating,” Suleman said, referring to Gosselin’s televised tummy tuck after her sextuplets. “I have a better shape, though. Sorry, no offense to her!” What say you, Kate Gosselin?

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Shaq was sworn in as Miami Beach police officer in 2005

– Tweet this, Shaq! The over-Twittering former Miami Heat star Shaquille O’Neal has remained silent, so far, about his being stopped by an L.A.P.D. patrolman Thursday morning. Yep. The tall head, a Miami Beach reserve police officer and would-be Broward sheriff, was ticketed while cruising a boulevard in Hollywood, Calif. Seems Shaq kept stopping before nightclubs, and slowed traffic to a halt, according to TMZ. The L.A. cop must have been a Kobe Bryant fan.

– And finally, here’s a picture of the yearly pre-season party that Florida Atlantic University football holds for coaches at team dentist Richard Staller ’s house in Boca. From left to righ: Staller, head basketball coach Mike Jarvis, head baseball coach John McCormack, football defensive coordinator Kirk Hoza and, in the Larry King suspenders, head football coach Howard Schnellenberger.

Dwyane Wade on the red carpet of the Summer Groove Friday night

The Summer Groove, a weekend long charity wingding thrown every year by Miami Heat superstar Dwyane Wade and Heat retiree Alonzo Mourning, is in full swing.

In addition to a celebrity ball game with the likes of Lebron James Sunday evening at the Triple A downtown Miami, the duo has come up with a full schedule of goodies, including a $500-a-head gala dinner tonight at the Seminole Hard Rock.

And Friday night, Cedric The Entertainer had Groove goers in stitches at the event’s comedy show, also at the Hollywood casino/resort.

For more Storms Media Group photos of Friday night’s red carpet arrivals, including Wade galpal Gabrielle Union, look below or click (Read more…)