PASADENA, Ca. -- U.S. critics have not been kind to Dirt, the new cable series starring Courteney Cox. Which is a bit of a surprise since it hails from FX, which has charmed critics with a string of grown-up goodies, including The Shield, Nip/Tuck and Rescue Me.

Then again -- as we saw this week with CBC's Little Mosque On The Prairie -- what do critics know. Dirt just debuted as FX's second-highest-rated series premiere ever.

When I told a U.S. critic that, far as I know, no Canadian network had scooped Dirt, he looked at me with envy and approval. "Talk about smuggling dope across the border," he said.

Still, as we all know, Dirt sells. Don't be surprised if we see it here soon.

The series stars Cox as Lucy Spiller, the editor-in-chief of two tell-all tabloids. It would seem like a cathartic gig for Cox who, along with her five famous Friends, spent a decade as a prime tabloid target.

Cox, who also executive produces the series with her actor/husband, David Arquette, says she did indeed leap at the part. In fact, Dirt was supposed to star Arquette but, when the juicy part of Spiller was created, Cox went, "uh-oh. Sorry David," she told critics. "It was too good to pass up."

Why didn't they both star in the series? Nothing doing, Cox said. They did three Scream movies together, for heaven's sake. "I think we hang out enough," she said.

Her comments made critics wonder: Was there trouble in paradise? Cox and Arquette have been married seven and a half years, which translates to about 1,000 years in Hollywood. Silent tabloid alarms went off all over the room. "The dirt on Dirt" was typed into 150 laptops.

Cox has some pretty steamy scenes in Dirt. Spiller is a bit of a maneater. Was it hard to do love scenes in front of her husband, she was asked?

"It would be if he was there," she answered. "He doesn't come to the set ever on those days."

Maybe they really are on the outs. Or maybe Cox -- still looking gorgeous, with that inky black hair and model-perfect face -- is just so secure and content she can just be honest in a room full of cynics and not give a damn.

It wasn't always this way. Back in the Friends days, Cox was as guarded as Fort Knox. At this session, she was shooing publicists away to allow press scrums to continue.

She says she doesn't really read tabloids herself, except maybe at airports. She likes looking at the pictures. "I love to see what people are wearing," she said.

One of the senior scribes in the room asked her if she could recall her "be careful what you wish for moment," the time she realized she was a star and that fame could sometimes be, as the reporter said, "a pain in the ass."

Cox thought and said it was when she was pregnant with her daughter, Coco, and photographers were chasing her all over town. "That to me was too far," she said. "It's amazing, just your motherly instincts grab a hold, or maybe my hormones." She still doesn't go to the beach with her child for fear that they'll be snapped in private moments.

The worst tabloid rumour she ever had to endure? That she was anorexic.

"There was a period there when I was on Friends when I was really thin, really thin," she said. "And I thought I looked great. In retrospect, not so good. But I did not have anorexia." It bugged her that "kids across America" thought she had the eating disorder.

She's not exactly tubby today. The willowy 42-year-old looks like she's ballooned up to 100 pounds.

All that constant scrutiny must be tough. But, then again, it could be worse -- she could be Jennifer Aniston. Her best Friends friend has been tabloid target No. 1 ever since splitting with Brad Pitt.

Cox just returned from a holiday with Aniston and was twisting her friend's arm to get her to guest next season on Dirt. Was there part of her that was jealous of all the tabloid attention heaped on Aniston?

Cox laughed, looked around the room and said, "Not a smidgen."