The 2008 Golden Pacifier Awards

Knocked Up, Grown Up Award
Nicole Richie

It seems minutes ago that Nicole Richie's mug shot made the rounds on the Internet, after she drove the wrong way down a freeway in Burbank, CA, allegedly under the influence of Vicodin and marijuana, having put just french fries and a shot of vodka in her stomach all day. Actually, it was about three months before a life-transforming zygote settled into the then 85-pound celebrity waif's womb. And that's when something really happened. By the time Richie, 26, revealed her pregnancy with rock-star boyfriend Joel Madden, 28, to Diane Sawyer in a Good Morning America interview last August, she'd stopped drinking, drugging, and smoking, filled out a bit, and adopted a downright adult attitude. "I plan to be a good example for little girls that are looking up to me," said Richie, who shocked paparazzi in her conversion from gaunt wild child to glowy model preggo, and delivered Harlow Winter Kate Madden on January 11, 2008. The healthy cherub weighed in at 6 pounds, 7 ounces. Richie, who has said that thoughts of parenthood prompted her to grow up quick, and Madden celebrated the birth in advance, creating the Richie-Madden Children's Foundation, through which they donated their deluge of baby-shower gifts to needier parents. "Having a baby is the most exciting thing that's ever happened to me, and to us," the once relationship-reticent Madden told People. Here's hoping their tiny miracle holds them on this positive trajectory.