Everyone told me I was dead wrong when I called Nicole Richie pregnant after these pictures of her came out with a little belly. That’s just malnutrition bloat, people told me. Some commentors said they struggled with anorexia in the past or knew someone who had and that type of belly is common when someone doesn’t eat enough and can no longer digest food.

One source that agreed with my visual assessment is the National Enquirer. They say that Richie was seen leaving a OB/GYN’s office on May 21st and that she checked into quickie rehab last month, which she denies, to detox from medication after she learned she was pregnant.

Nicole Richie rushed herself back into rehab after announcing to close confidantes: “I’m pregnant!”

That’s the stunning secret behind the 83-pound reality TV star’s decision to get help for an eating disorder and drug abuse….

We have learned exclusively that Nicole went to rehab after she took a home pregnancy test that came back positive, according to an insider. She then broke the news to Joel, 28.

Joel told her to get into rehab immediately. And he warned “that if she didn’t go into rehab and get healthy for the baby’s sake, he would dump her and never look back,” said the insider.

[From The National Enquirer print edition, June 11, 2007]

Richie is trying to stay sober, claims the Enquirer, and needs to kick her addictions to the painkiller Vicodin and the sleep medication Soma. They don’t say whether she’s been successful or not, just that she went into rehab briefly and is now seeing a general practitioner with a specialty of drug addiction treatment along with the OB/GYN.

The article has an inset story with analysis from a doctor who says that skeletal Richie could definitely be putting her unborn baby at risk. The obstetrician asks “How in God’s name did she get pregnant?” [at that low weight of 83 pounds] and says that the baby is at risk for a condition called intrauterine growth restriction, which can lead to premature delivery and birth defects.

If the Enquirer is doing anything more than looking at the pictures and jumping to conclusions, like I did, I would be surprised. Still, they may be on to something if she was seen outside an OB/GYN’s office recently. She may have just been there for a checkup, though.

If you check out recent pictures of Richie, available through WENN (I do have a subscription for WENN, but don’t have rights to publish those specific pictures here), she’s still sporting that maybe-baby bump. In most of the pictures she’s clutching her sweatshirt over her chest, but in others you can definitely see something there. The bump is not going away, and neither are the rumors.

Richie was seen taking a hike with at Runyon Canyon Park with an “unknown male companion” and was then seen eating a plate of watermelon at La Conversation restaurant in West Hollywood. (Details from Splash News and WENN)

Pictures of Nicole Pictures in the orange dress from INFDaily. In the other pictures Richie is shown in Beverly Hills on 5/30. It’s hard to see anything in that printed dress, but I’m telling you the stomach has not gone away.