Nick Lachey's gonna live forever...at least in the annals of MTV reality shows.

The former boy bander has signed on to develop and executive produce an as-yet-untitled unscripted musical drama for MTV, which is being touted as a real-life version of Fame.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the series—which is hoping to be for performing arts schools what Laguna Beach was for beachside enclaves—will follow a group of multitalented students at Lachey's alma mater, the School for Creative and Performing Arts in Cincinnati.

The show will meld footage of the students performing with the drama in their lives, per the trade, and play out like an edgier High School Musical; expect lots of student performances, rehearsals and impromptu dance sessions.

"The stories and relationships are all set to music that's organic in what's going on in the school and also performed by the kids," the MTV executive VP of series development and programming, Tony DiSanto, said, before busting into the requisite spiel on the cutting-edge nature of the program.

"This is a genre-busting, creative experiment I'm really excited about."

While the pilot has yet to be produced, the school has a history of producing showbiz-ready pupils. In addition to Lachey and his brother Drew, the school boasts Sarah Jessica Parker, Carmen Electra and character actor Todd Louiso among its alumni.

While they may never be able to say "adios" to the paparazzi, Nick Lachey and Vanessa Minnillo aren't sitting idly by as steamy photographs taken on their Mexican getaway make the tabloid rounds.

E! News has confirmed that Lachey has enlisted celebrity attorney Martin Singer to inform multiple magazines that they'll be playing with fire if they opt to publish the more graphic shots from a roll of film that supposedly features the singer and his TV personality paramour getting ultra-romantic in the hot tub at a private villa near Puerto Vallarta.

The July 9 issue of Life & Style already features shots of the couple frolicking on the beach, canoodling in the spa and nakedly toweling off (with all body parts censored) on the villa's patio. But Lachey, 33, and Minnillo, 26, are obviously in no mood to see the more intimate moments of their vacation become an international event.

"As a woman, my body is a temple, it's mine," a distressed Minnillo told OK! magazine. "So it was embarrassing. But we did nothing wrong."

"This is the girl that I love," added Lachey, no stranger to being caught on camera with the girl he loves. "It's tough to see someone you care about be unfairly judged. It's hard for me as a man to see my girl go through that. Everybody said it was a scandal. Where's the scandal? I was in Mexico with my girlfriend of a year, celebrating our anniversary on a private vacation.

"It's not like I was caught with a Mexican hooker. We've all gone out and had a few too many and done something stupid. We've all made mistakes. Unfortunately, as a celebrity, you're a target."

In his cease-and-desist letter to various publications, Singer has said that the photos, taken by a Mexican shutterbug on June 23 and 24, violated Mexican law and are a clear invasion of privacy, and that legal action would be forthcoming if any of the mags decided to publish the pics.

"I felt personally violated," Minnillo said. "If I was being disrespectful I would [have] expected to be punished, but I wasn't. It's wrong."

"For me, it was disheartening," Lachey said. "Is it acceptable to violate someone's private life and personal space? Is this what it's come to? We both knew when we came into this business we had to give up aspects of our privacy. But when someone is stalking you with a zoom camera lens, in my mind, that is overstepping the bounds."

The couple touched back down in Los Angeles Monday night after their publicly pleasant holiday.

When they're not able to get away from it all (or get away from nothing at all, really), Lachey and Minnillo split time between his L.A. home and her New York condo.

And, perhaps, whatever makes them almost file lawsuits together makes them stronger.

"I see even more now that Nick is the man I thought he was," Minnillo said. "He's very strong and has a good head on his shoulders. I know now he's definitely there for me. He has single-handedly pulled me through."

A team foul has been called on Nick Lachey, A.J. DiScala and a handful of other big names. 

The ex-hubbies of Jessica Simpson and Jamie-Lynn Sigler have been named as defendants in a million-dollar breach-of-contract lawsuit filed by a woman who claims she was entitled to a piece of the American Basketball Association team that Lachey and a host of other celebrity investors snatched up last summer. 

According to court documents filed Mar. 22 in Los Angeles Superior Court, Laura Brau entered into a contract with DiScala last June giving her a 10 percent stake in the Hollywood Fame franchise and a $100,000-per-year salary as president of the team. 

Per the complaint, however, DiScala never had any intention of fully compensating Brau under the terms of their written arrangement and then squeezed her out of the business by selling off 100 percent of the team's shares to other buyers, including Lachey, former baseball star Brady Anderson, NFL quarterback Kyle Boller and 7th Heaven actor Geoff Stults, all of whom were named as defendants. 

Fellow backers Stacey Keibler and Wilmer Valderrama were not mentioned by name in the suit, but Brau did sue the Hollywood Fame collectively. 

Brau calls the company that DiScala conducts business under, Brax Group LLC, "a mere shell and sham without capital, assets, stock or stockholders" and that he operated the company "to suit his personal convenience and for the purpose of evading duties and obligations, both monetary and non-monetary." 

The disgruntled would-be Fame executive is seeking at least $1.25 million in damages, including the $250,000 that she says is the current value of 10 percent of the team. 

Lachey, who got in the game with DiScala & Co. in August, is also a co-owner of the Tacoma Rainiers, the Seattle Mariners' Triple-A affiliate.

Love can hurt, no matter how rich, famous, perky or pretty you are.   

For instance, it was the opposite of easy for Jessica Simpson to see estranged hubby Nick Lachey romancing other women just weeks after their 2005 breakup. 

"Oh, it hurt me," the 26-year-old pop star says in an interview in Elle magazine's March issue. "Two or three weeks later? Yeah, I'd say it kind of hurt me." 

Simpson filed for divorce on Dec. 16, 2005, after three years of high-profile matrimony, with the split becoming official last June. Soon after the couple gratified all those pessimistic tabloids out there, Lachey was spotted out and about with Kristin Cavallari of Laguna Beach fame. 

While theirs was a brief coupling, enough pictures were taken to really hammer the whole "Nick & Jessica are over" point home. Lachey is currently dating MTV host Vanessa Minnillo, who also appeared in the video for "What's Left of Me," the title song off the former boy bander's latest solo album.  

A Newlywed no longer, Simpson has been seen canoodling at various locales with John Mayer, whose camp downplayed the hookup a while back but is now letting nature take its course. But where that course is headed is anyone's guess.

"I want to tell you everything, but I have to sew my lips together," Simpson said. "It's hurt me in the past." 

The Dukes of Hazzard star, no stranger to loose lips and sunken ships, did not particularly object, however, when the reporter interviewing her suggested that one day, because of this newly imposed veil of secrecy surrounding Simpson's private life, we're all going to wake up one day and read that the actor-singer has tied the knot again. She also admitted to being "so happy right now." 

"I let people in on who I am and how I react to my husband," Simpson said, referring to the MTV reality series she and Lachey participated in for a year and a half. "That's a big deal. Celebrities don't do that. So, I think [the tabloids] brought me down just because I stopped talking and because I have not spoken—and will not speak—about my divorce. And I think people feel like I owe them my reality right now." 

Simpson did have this to offer about her divorce: She was inspired to move on with her life after catching the long-lost-romance drama The Notebook during a plane ride from Los Angeles to Waco, Texas, to visit her grandparents. 

While the world can't directly blame Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams for the couple's demise, Simpson took the film's message to heart. 

"I just figured out the statement," she said. "It was about that moment of desperation. I needed to breathe." 

Many breaths later, Simpson appears to have moved past the scrutiny, and she's looking toward the future. A future that also includes Lachey, who she's still in touch with.  

"He's so much a part of my life, how could I not be?" Simpson said. "Any guy who's going to be with me from this day forward has to understand that." 

But when asked if she's in love again, the fresh-faced divorcée would only respond with a demure "I didn't say yes."

The final curtain has fallen on this very public affair.

Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey have settled the division of their assets, according to court documents.

While the ex-Newlyweds have technically been singletons and free to marry others since June, with great success comes great responsibility. For their lawyers and accountants, that is.

Details of the settlement were not disclosed and each has agreed not to discuss the other's financial holdings, but we can remember that Simpson, while we wouldn't compare her situation to Britney's, was reportedly raking in more money than her hubby during their three-year marriage.

The comely couple tied the knot on Oct. 26, 2002. Then, after several seasons of televised connubial bliss on MTV, followed by countless rumors that Jessica no longer wanted to love Nick forever, the Dukes of Hazzard star filed for divorce in December 2005.

But even though they aren't sharing too many tabloid covers anymore, Simpson and Lachey have continued to make their own headlines.

Lachey, 33, channeled his post-split energy into his second solo album, What's Left of Me. The disc debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 in May, prompting critics to ponder whether divorce may have been just what the former boy bander needed.

The Cincinnati kid, who was spotted each week cheering brother Drew along on Dancing with the Stars in early 2006, has also been romancing TRL host Vanessa Minnillo, 26, for the past eight months.

"The first few months were hard," a friend of Lachey told People in November. "But Nick finally realized he was in a better place."

Simpson, 26, meanwhile, released her fourth studio album, A Public Affair, in August and starred in Employee of the Month with rumored boy-toy Dane Cook. The singer was also linked to fellow pop star John Mayer at one point, but his camp fired back with a "sounds way more heavy than it is"-type response.

Last month Simpson was in Shreveport, Louisiana, filming the romantic comedy Blonde Ambition with Luke Wilson, Rachel Leigh Cook and Penelope Ann Miller.