"We are the No. 1 pre-show. People watch us because we're fun, we're entertaining and we're human," says Rivers.

"Yeah, I challenge anybody to stand there and not make any mistakes," says her daughter.

Both likened the Red Carpet to a battle zone. "It's truly full metal jacket. This is the one where you're not fooling around and no one is your friend. If you get Nicole Kidman and BBC doesn't, they'll kill you to get her," said the elder. [NY Post] Red carpet soap opera:

Welcome to the world of a celebrity stylist during Oscar season - one in which stealing clients, hoarding clothes, sabotaging colleagues or outfitting a client in a less-than-ideal look because the stylist has been bribed by a label, is all too commonplace.

Tonight's golden girl Charlize Theron - the odds-on favorite for Best Actress - is one A-lister who has managed to stay above the fray: she is honoring a long-standing commitment to pal Cindy Evans, whom she promised she would hire if she was ever nominated for an Academy Award. Theron is believed to be wearing Yves St. Laurent tonight.

Yet such fidelity and above-board behavior is a rarity.

While few will ever go on the record, stylists' dirty tricks - on behalf of them and their clientele - are an open secret in Hollywood.

One popular undermining technique, according to many: One stylist will borrow dresses that she has no intention of having her clients consider - so that actresses will be forced to work with her and other actresses won't look as good as her clientele.

"There's a group of stylists known as The Hoarders," says L.A.-based stylist Rachel Zoe Rosenzweig, who lists Jennifer Garner and Rebecca Romijin Stamos among her clients.

"They hold dresses [all week] so that no other stylist can show them to their clients," she says. "Then they release them the Saturday night before the show - when everyone's already chosen their [look]."

Lesser tactics include lying about a client list.

"One stylist called [in a dress] for Halle Berry - and next thing I knew, another one of their clients had it on!" says another designer's publicist. "I don't work with that person any more."

Dressing a client in a breakout Oscar gown can catapult a stylist into their own limelight: After putting Halle Berry in a red Elie Saab at the 2002 Oscars, stylist Philip Bloch became a go-to style expert for magazines and was recently featured on an episode of "Newlyweds," working with Jessica Simpson. L'Wren Scott was responsible for outfitting Nicole Kidman in the pink Chanel confection she wore to the 2002 Oscars, elevating Scott's profile to such a degree that she now dates Mick Jagger. Andrea Leiberman generated major buzz by putting Jennifer Lopez in a pistachio-green Valentino that was an homage to an outfit worn by Jackie O.
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