Russell Brand stands to land $20 million or more from his divorce from wife Katy Perry, reports said Monday.

The British actor and comedian told New York magazine last year that he and Perry did not sign a prenuptial agreement. And since the two were married in California, he would, according to state law, be entitled a 50/50 split of the couple's earnings, even after just 14 months of marriage.

Nice work if you can get it.

According to Forbes, Perry is worth at least $44 million, but some reports suggest it could be more.

'IDOL'S' DURBIN GETS HITCHED:

Santa Cruz rocker and "American Idol" finalist James Durbin is greeting the new year with a new title -- husband.

Durbin wed his longtime girlfriend Heidi Lowe on New Year's Eve in front of 85 guests -- including their 2-year-old son, Hunter, who was the ring bearer, in a chapel at the edge of a redwood forest in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

"We are so in love and happy that we got to share our special day with our closest family and friends," the couple said in a statement. "This wedding was the perfect way to kick off the New Year. We are looking forward to living happily ever after."

Guests included Durbin's fellow "Idol" Season 10 alums Haley Reinhart, Stefano Langone and Casey Abrams. Also on hand was Geoff Tate, frontman for legendary metal band Queensryche, who reportedly surprised the couple with a performance of his band's 1984 classic "Take Hold

of the Flame" -- one of Durbin and Lowe's favorite tunes.

QUEEN OF SOUL ENGAGED: Aretha Franklin is engaged to her longtime boyfriend William "Willie" Wilkerson.

The Grammy-winning singer told the Associated Press in a statement Monday that she and Wilkerson are considering a summer wedding, perhaps in Miami Beach, Fla. The Queen of Soul wants to follow the ceremony with a reception on a private yacht.

Franklin lost 85 pounds last year after a health scare, the nature of which was not revealed, and told People magazine, "I feel fabulous."

Adds Franklin, "We're looking at June or July for our date and no, I'm not pregnant, LOL!"

Franklin and Wilkerson became engaged over the holidays.

She told People she is considering Vera Wang, Valentino and Donna Karan to design her dress.

Franklin was previously married to Ted White for eight years before the two split in 1969, and then to actor Glynn Turman, whom she married in 1978 and divorced in 1984.

CEE LO GREEN TICKS OFF JOHN LENNON FANS: Cee Lo Green's decision to monkey with the lyrics on "Imagine" has John Lennon fans screaming "(forget) you!"

The singer and producer performed the classic song Saturday night on NBC's New Year's Eve broadcast from Times Square, but altered the lyrics to make the song more religion-friendly.

He changed the line "nothing to kill or die for/and no religion too" to "nothing to kill or die for/and all religion's true."

The lyrics change angered some Lennon fans, who took to Twitter to let Cee Lo have it.

"The whole point of that lyric is that religion causes harm," tweeted someone with the handle @geekysteven. "If 'all religion's true' it would be a pretty bleak place."

"Yo I meant no disrespect by changing the lyric guys!" Green responded on Twitter. "I was trying to say a world were u could believe what u wanted that's all." He responded directly to other angry Lennon fans on Twitter, but has since deleted all of the tweets.

Lennon was a frequent critic of organized religion, once infamously predicting that Christianity would "vanish and shrink."

MADONNA SAYS NO TO PORTRAYING JACKIE O: Madonna was asked to portray Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in a magazine shoot, but rejected the idea, says a new memoir. The request came from John F. Kennedy Jr., Jackie O's son.

According to an upcoming memoir by RoseMarie Terenzio, former friend and publicist of Kennedy's. The political scion and publisher of George Magazine wanted Madonna to pose as his mother on the cover of his magazine's 1996 Women in Politics issue.

"I think we should dress Madonna up as my mother," Terenzio remembers Kennedy saying in the memoir, "Fairy Tale Interrupted." "Wouldn't that be a riot?"

Yes. We're in stitches.

Terenzio recalls he argued strongly against it.

Besides using a controversial pop icon to play a beloved first lady, he says, the move would have created a "media (expletive)storm" because it had long been rumored that Kennedy and Madonna had a fling in 1988.

The argument became moot when Madonna shot down the idea.

"Dear Johnny Boy," she wrote, "Thanks for asking me to be your mother but I could never do her justice. My eyebrows aren't thick enough, for one. When you want me to portray Eva Braun or Pamela Harriman, I might say yes! Hope you're well. Love, Madonna"

Eventually, Drew Barrymore wound up on the cover, portraying -- irony alert! -- Marilyn Monroe.

TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Tuesday, Jan. 3, the third day of 2012. There are 363 days left in the year.

1521: Martin Luther was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church by Pope Leo X.

1777: Gen. George Washington's army routed the British in the Battle of Princeton, N.J.

1961: President Dwight D. Eisenhower announced the United States was formally terminating diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba.

1967: Jack Ruby, the man who shot and killed accused presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, died in a Dallas hospital.

1990: Ousted Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega surrendered to U.S. forces, 10 days after taking refuge in the Vatican's diplomatic mission.

2002: A judge in Alabama ruled that former Ku Klux Klansman Bobby Frank Cherry was mentally competent to stand trial on murder charges in the 1963 Birmingham church bombing that killed four black girls. (Cherry was later convicted, and served a life sentence until his death in Nov. 2004.)

2011: Democrat Jerry Brown was sworn in as California's 39th governor, returning to the office he'd left 28 years earlier.

BIRTHDAYS

Record producer Sir George Martin (86), actor Dabney Coleman (80), Hockey Hall-of-Famer Bobby Hull (73), singer-songwriter musician Stephen Stills (67), rock musician John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin (66), actress Victoria Principal (62), actor-director Mel Gibson (56), actress Shannon Sturges (44), jazz musician James Carter (43) singer Kimberley Locke (34), actor Alex D. Linz (23).

-- Associated Press