Change of direction in the works at Ocean Drive magazine?

The Miami Beach institution has found a replacement for former Editor-in-Chief Suzy Buckley Woodward — and the choice is raising eyebrows in the luxury glossy biz.

Ocean Drive last week announced the arrival of New York magazine honcho Jared Shapiro, who, until later this month, is running the supermarket checkout line staples In Touch and Life & Style.

Shapiro is known for cozying up to some celebrities. He co-authored former Hugh Hefner galpal Kendra Wilkinson’s recent book about motherhood.

But Shapiro is also known as a hardcore tabloid editor under whose stewardship both In Touch and Life & Style, which are owned by German publishing giant Bauer, were sued by actor Tom Cruise.

The big screen action hero didn’t like the magazine’s claims that he abandoned daughter Suri, his child with actress Katy Holmes. And the $50 million lawsuit includes claims by Cruise that his people tried to correct the stories but Shapiro’s publications refused.

Is this the birth of a new Ocean Drive obsessed with celebrities’ dirty laundry instead of well-folded lingerie?

Shapiro deferred comments to the magazine’s publicist, Jackie Mailhe. In an email, she simply said the glossy’s format will remain untouched.

Said Ocean Drive founder Jerry Powers, who’s no longer with the company: “I expect they’ll stay the course. No one will be offended, and the lines between editorial and advertising will remain absent.”

Buckley Woodward, by the way, left her job in the fall. That happened about the time her restaurateur husband Josh Woodward was indicted in Los Angeles for allegedly inserting an abortion-causing powder into his pregnant girlfriend during sex.

Premature ‘Idol’?

American Idol is accused every so often of being as fake as pro wrestling, and it’s not Cuban American candidate Lazaro Arbos who’s going to change that.

Arbos, 21, the Naples ice cream scooper who stutters when he talks but sings like a pro, hinted that he made Thursday night’s cuts into the finals in a tweet that came three hours before the episode was aired on WSVN-Channel 7.

The tweet was to announce to his fans, nicknamed Lazis, that AI producers would be turning on his new Twitter account late Thursday.

Clearly, he’d not have a new Twitter handle if he had been eliminated.

There was no harm done — and indeed Arbos passed with flying colors after singing one of judge Keith Urban’s hits.

Taxman still on OJ

Uncle Sam‘s showing no mercy toward fallen football icon O.J. Simpson.

The Internal Revenue Service has just filed a third tax lien in Miami-Dade County against the convicted all-around bad guy.

The latest claim is for $63,413.79 in unpaid federal income taxes for the year 2006.

The Juice’s tab has now grown to a total of $259,864 and 75 cents — all taxes on cash that Simpson's been making on his pension and investments while he serves 30 years for kidnapping and robbery in a Nevada desert prison.

IRS officials last year filed a first action claiming that the 65-year-old NFL Hall of Famer owes $179,435.07 for 2007-10. Another one came in time for Christmas, $17,015.99 for 2007.

The liens allow the IRS first dibs on the sale of Simpson's house in Kendall. Simpson's Miami attorney didn't return calls for comment.