



CBS Chief’s Hooker Stalker

CBS was clearly looking for a fresh start when it replaced the Memogate-tainted Andrew Heyward with Sean McManus as president of its news division. But unfortunately the appointment seems to have brought McManus a tawdry blast from his own past. We hear a mentally unstable former bra model who once had a one-night encounter with McManus—and whom the exec had arrested after she threatened to tell the press—recently went on a rampage after hearing about his promotion.
The sordid affair began when McManus, at the time V.P. for CBS Sports, went to an Upper East Side bar on the night of the 1997 U.S. Open and met Charlotte von Vogt, a then 46-year-old part-time prostitute and former bra model once known for having “the most beautiful breasts in the world”—at least according to famed flack Dick Falk. The exec reportedly enjoyed a few rounds of cocktails with the buxom blonde, then invited her back to his Park Avenue apartment for a nightcap.
It was at this point that their memories of the evening diverge. Von Vogt has claimed that she and McManus embarked on a night of drinking, drug use, and kinky sex. In court, an attorney for McManus categorized the whole encounter simply as “a chat, a walk, a drink, [and] a simple and chaste goodbye.” The one thing that’s certain is that after the two parted, von Vogt began to call McManus nonstop, demanding that he acknowledge what she claims transpired between them and pleading with him to attend a session with her psychiatrist. When she finally threatened him in February 1998—after 15 fruitless calls, many of which McManus secretly recorded—that she would go public with her story if he persisted in denying what ocurred, he had her arrested for harassment and “telephone stalking.” (McManus, incidentally, had just gotten married the previous June.)
When the case went to court in 1999, McManus was cross-examined twice about the evening in front of a press-filled gallery. (So much for keeping it out of the papers.) Von Vogt, however, suffered a nervous breakdown during the proceedings—brought on, she claimed, by the investigators CBS had sicced on her—and the judge declared her unfit for trial. Afterwards, her attorney, David Breitbart, suggested she see a new therapist to deal with the emotional fallout from the case.
According to a source close to the trial, von Vogt only saw the therapist briefly before dropping out of sight—until October of this year, when McManus was announced as the incoming CBS News head. We’re told she began calling the female shrink nonstop, venting her anger over the exec’s promotion and claiming “she was going to use [the psychiatrist] to get to McManus.” Then, last Halloween, von Vogt followed the shrink from her office and attempted to push her into oncoming traffic on York Avenue and 75th Street in Manhattan, screaming, “You Bitch! You piece of garbage! You’re just a pawn to get to McManus!” She was arrested and, last we heard, was being held without bail.
McManus could not be reached by presstime.
Photo: CBS News



PETA Sends Vogue Holiday Jeer

Anna Wintour can’t catch a break. Just two days after PETA plastered bathrooms at the Vogue editor’s favorite haunts with stickers calling her a “fur hag,” we hear the animal rights faction is planning an all-out assault on her staff—with Christmas cards.
According to PETA spokesman Michael McGraw, the anti-fur outfit is planning to mail festive green-and-red envelopes to the glossy’s staff containing illustrated peek-a-boo cards that open to reveal an emaciated Wintour in her underwear. A message scrawled on the front and inside reads: “Without Fur I Am Nothing.” (Fashionistas may recall similar cards being handed out during New York Fashion Week in 2000.)
“We have a mailing list for the entire staff of Vogue, and they’ll be going out this week to everyone,” McGraw said. Asked how PETA had obtained the list, the rep first cracked, “That’s proprietary information,” before saying, somewhat ominously, “Not everyone on Anna’s staff shares her fetish for fur.” (Of course, they could have just looked at the masthead.)
Why is PETA so stuck on Wintour?
“We’ve been trying to work with the magazine since the early nineties, but they have repeatedly turned down paid PETA anti-fur ads sight-unseen,” the spokesman said, adding that advertisements featuring “some of the biggest names in Hollywood” like Charlize Theron, Kim Basinger, and Pamela Anderson have run in other fashion mags. “We simply ask for equal time. If they’re going to promote fur through dozens and dozens of editorial and advertising pages each month, at least let us pay for an anti-fur ad.”
While Wintour shows no signs of bending to her blood-tossing bêtes noires, McGraw says the group “remains hopeful that Anna will have a change of heart.” After all, Martha Stewart, who was at the top of PETA’s “worst-dressed list” last year, has since “learned about the cruelty involved and actually narrated an anti-fur video for us,” he said.
If Wintour fails to follow Martha’s lead, what kind of greeting can she expect for the next Hallmark holiday? “We have no plans yet for Easter,” McGraw said, “though Valentine’s Day may see some PETA cupids outside Condé Nast.”
A Vogue rep could not be reached by press time.
Art: PETA



No Happy Ending For Jenna Bush

Jenna Bush’s infamous ID-gate videotape is raising more questions than the Zapruder film. According to a source who has seen the footage—which features a self-described downtown coke dealer relating his late-night run-in with the First Daughter, and brandishing her college ID as a souvenir—the man insinuates that the two shared more than just drinks.
A well-informed source, who has a DVD copy of the interview shot by tbirdshow.com’s Travis Poston, says that at one point the dealer claims that the young, blonde Jenna Bush with the Texas accent he hung out with that night (and who happened to leave behind Jenna Bush’s belongings) had been “helping [him] clean up” the bar after a long night of partying.
(A publicist for First Lady Laura Bush has unequivocally denied that her daughter has ever been to the Chinatown bar, Happy Ending, even though we hear the UT-Austin ID card displayed in the film clearly shows the hard-partying political liability’s name, picture and student ID number.)
According to the New York Post’s Page Six, the Secret Service are reportedly taking the tape seriously enough to investigate, and we hear they’re not the only ones. When Fresh Intelligence emailed tbirdshow.com about securing selected clips to host on this site, we received the following curt response: “There are about ten top papers fighting for that footage. Get in line.”
Needless to say, “if a coke dealer has your ID it doesn’t look so good,” quipped the source.
Apparently, the affable salesman doesn’t limit his company to presidential offspring. “He brags on camera that he’s down with all the members of Interpol,” our source says. “And everybody in the club that walks by in the video says ‘hi’ to him.”
Reps for Bush and Interpol could not be reached by press time.
Photos: NYDN



Star Search At AMI

What happens when tabloid editors stop fabricating celebrity pregnancies and start getting real? Insiders at David Pecker’s checkout-aisle empire say execs there have been working with a Hollywood producer to create a reality TV series chronicling the professional—and personal—lives of AMI staffers.
According to a source involved in the talks, a hand-picked group of employees was summoned to a video conference last Wednesday to learn what would be expected of them if the show gets greenlit. The producer will begin interviewing candidates this week in search of eight staffers worthy of being tailed by round-the-clock camera crews, we hear.
“Star, Celebrity Living, Men’s Fitness, Shape—we had people from everywhere,” the source said when asked about the cattle call. “We’re having meetings, but there’s no pen to paper yet. We haven’t made a commitment but we’re exploring it.” The only thing certain, the source added, is that the proposed series won’t prominently feature Pecker or editorial director Bonnie Fuller.
Tentatively called One Park Avenue after the company’s Manhattan address (“We don’t own the rights to that title yet,” the source noted, saying the producer would have to license them from the building), the show will be “about the lives of the people who work here versus just about the magazines.”
According to multiple AMI sources, those willing to sacrifice their remaining shreds of dignity to the company’s multimedia ambitions will indeed be paid.
“We get pitches all the time from people, and this is just one of many,” the source said. “I’m sure if you call any magazine company, everyone is looking to get their name on TV. I mean, Glamor, Vogue, Us Weekly, Rolling Stone, Seventeen—they’re all looking for opportunities to get on TV.”
The source declined to name the producer who pitched the series, saying only that he was “pretty well-established” in the genre. According to AMI insiders, the mystery producer has worked on both Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and Showtime’s Penn & Teller: Bullshit! The only producer fitting that description, according to IMDB, is reality TV vet Star Price whose spine-tingling credits like The Scariest Places on Earth and the upcoming Nightmare on Elm Street: Real Nightmares would seem to make him a perfect fit for capturing life in Bonnie-ville. (Price did not return calls for comment.)
Of course, some might ask whether it’s a good time to expose the privately held company’s inner workings to the public. AMI’s diminishing earnings and high staff turnover have lately been a recurring theme in New York Post media scribbler Keith Kelly ’s column, which recently announced the hiring of Carlos Abaunza, AMI’s third CFO in 2005 alone.
This isn’t the first time Fuller and Co. have tried to bring life at a celeb weekly to the small screen. In 2003, when she was still at Us Weekly, a series reportedly nicknamed “The Bonnie Show” fell through because “it imposed on the real job of putting out a magazine every week—it encumbered the process.” The source claimed that One Park Avenue would be “totally different.”
“The Us Weekly show was about how a magazine gets put together in the newsroom and all that shit,” the source said. “This concept has nothing to do with that.”
An AMI rep did not wish to be quoted on the record for this story.
Previously: Two Rags And A Baby
Photo: PMC



Tom Ford’s Indecent Proposal

We hear flesh-obsessed designer Tom Ford’s gig as guest editor of Vanity Fair’s Hollywood Issue recently hit a kink. Sources close to the glossy say demure rising starlet Rachel McAdams stormed out of a November cover shoot for the annual industry mash note—and fired her publicist—after learning Ford expected her to pose nude.
According to mag insiders, Ford had prearranged with McAdam’s rep, Wolf Kasteller’s Ame Van Iden, for the in-demand Red Eye actress to appear naked in a group portrait of Hollywood’s breathtaking beauties-of-the-moment, alongside Keira Knightley, Scarlett Johansson, and others. (We presume the shoot was conceived along the tasteful lines of Herb Ritts’ iconic 1989 supermodel ensemble, “Stephanie Cindy Christy Tatjana Naomi”, but considering Ford’s involvement it’s possible to imagine a raunchier scenario.)
Unfortunately for legions of mouth-breathing McAdams fans, we’re told Van Iden neglected to brief her family-friendly charge—who may have been the only actress in Wedding Crashers to keep all her clothes on—about the concept beforehand. When she arrived on the L.A. set and found out what Ford had in mind, we’re told she turned tail and promptly fired Van Iden.
“Every magazine wants her on their cover and thinks she’s gonna be huge, so she can get away with being picky,” says a Condé Nast insider. “But everyone’s really impressed that she stood up for herself. It’s kind of amazing, actually.”
While the 29-year-old actress’s chaste retreat suggests she has a tad more dignity than the average Hollywood climber, it’s odd she was so blindsided by Ford’s request. After all, the former Gucci designer has previously told reporters the “entire issue would be naked,” and his recent work has certainly showcased his fondness for letting it all hang out—he posed au naturel for a 22-page spread in last month’s W, his new line of cosmetics for Estee Lauder is called Amber Nude, his ad campaign for the fragrance Youth Dew features a naked Carolyn Murphy, and an advertisement he produced for a new line of sunglasses reportedly features porn stars whom he says were paid “to have sex on set.”
Neither Ford nor VF spokeswoman Beth Kseniak returned calls about the incident. McAdam’s manager, Shelley Browning, confirmed that McAdams “presently does not have a publicist,” but referred questions about the cover shoot to the magazine. Van Iden herself did not return calls.
UPDATE: So much for dignity. Even though McAdams fired her publicist for neglecting to tell her she was expected to pose nude, we hear she ultimately decided a VF cover was too good to pass up and returned to disrobe anyway. We also hear Van Iden, her fired rep, wasn’t even on set when it happened. A top-tier Hollywood player writes in:
“Ame was absolutely set up by Vanity Fair. No one talked to her beforehand about her client posing nude. (Seriously—if they had, she would never have agreed to it). Ame had to cover another client’s shoot in L.A. and sent her counterpart from Wolf Kasteller’s New York office to accompany Rachel on the set. When they arrived, [VF celebrity wrangler] Jane Sarkin told Rachel, ‘Oh, Ame knew all about this and agreed to it,’ which was an out and out lie and, moreover, a way to intimidate a young actress into taking her clothes off. Of course, they always blame the publicist, and sweet, mild-mannered Ame got fired by her client for it. Very low-end, nasty stuff if you ask me.”
Photos: NYDN



Is Singer’s Superman A Loss For Lois?

Did director Bryan Singer’s penchant for casting with the lensman in his pants influence his choice of Brandon Routh to play the Man of Steel in Superman Returns? Ever since the unknown 26-year-old actor—whose career highlights consist of a season on One Life to Live and an episode of Will & Grace —landed the part over Warner Brothers’ reported favorite Jim Caviezel, fanboy bloggers have been wondering whether the famously beefcake-friendly filmmaker’s decision had more to do with his libido than his director’s eye.
Of course, if Singer cast an object of his desire in a role, it wouldn’t be the first time. According to Alex Burton, the unknown who played Pyro in Singer’s first X-Men blockbuster, he was given the part after a hot-tub session with the director at a Hollywood party. “Bryan created that role especially for me,” says Burton, who went on to act in exactly zero films post-X-Men.
(Singer, it seems, has a thing for water. Following the filming of Apt Pupil, a number of young male extras on the movie filed lawsuits claiming that they had been bullied into stripping naked for a shower scene and that Singer had held private screenings of the wet ‘n’ wild footage at his home. The suits never reached court.)
Whether or not Routh (“rhymes with mouth,” according to Newsweek; “B.J.” to his friends, according to IMDB) knows his way around a loofah, early press on the film has only fanned the proverbial flames. As Superman Returns actress Parker Posey told Newsweek (albeit, completely out of context), “Poor Brandon. He’s got everyone touching him all the time. He’s lying on his stomach and he’s got five people coming up and pulling his underwear down, sticking their hands up the butt of his suit. I can’t imagine what it’s like.” (The article goes on to say that “the biggest issue for the studio” was what size to make Superman’s “package.”)
Further driving chatter on online message boards is the out director’s track record of putting together gay-friendly productions. Kevin Spacey, who has long ducked questions about his sexuality, was the centerpiece of Singer’s breakout film The Usual Suspects (he also appears in Superman Returns, as Lex Luthor), and the director’s two X-Men movies—about teen superheroes fighting for acceptance (and starring Hugh Jackman, Alan Cumming and Sir Ian McKellan)—were widely interpreted as allegories for coming out of the closet. In fact, one particularly out-there bit of gossip making the rounds is that Singer cast Routh specifically because he wanted a closeted actor who could “come out” as a political statement-cum-publicity-stunt in the run-up to the movie’s June ‘06 premiere.
Asked about Routh’s path to the silver screen, his publicist at PMK, Simon Halls, said that while he rarely comments on his clients’ personal lives, “I think it only fair to tell you that Brandon is happily involved with his longtime girlfriend, and any claims to the contrary are just plain silliness.” A rep for Singer did not respond to calls or detailed e-mails seeking comment.
Photo: PMC
Page Six Cuts And Runs
In the course of writing this column, we receive our fare share of verbose legal threats and understand how annoying it can be to deal with the petulant demands of high-powered attorneys. That said, we’re a bit disappointed to see our good pals at Page Six not only cave under pressure, but pass the buck on to us for their own erroneous reporting. In a retraction published yesterday, the usually on-target scandal sheet apologized profusely for picking up our scoop on Brittany Murphy’s untimely split from both her publicist and manager, and parroted her flack’s line that the moves were Murphy’s decision.
Fair enough. There’s a reason Marty Singer is the best-paid lawyer in Hollywood. Decidedly un-kosher, however, is the assertion that we attributed the split to a certain declasse episode at a Hollywood party. We didn’t. The drug and caiter-waiter-banging-bonanza-of-a-blind item in question appeared in Ted Casablancas’s column on E! Online and was subsequently dissected by the readers of Defamer. Although we did link to the item and the Defamer post, we never claimed the anonymous skank was Murphy; only that it didn’t reflect well on her image that a large number of her fans seemed to think it was. In Page Six’s defense, when they get something wrong—as they reliably do with our site address—at least they’re consistent.
Previously: Career, Interrupted



Braunstein Victim Calls in Cavalry

While New York’s finest chase reporter-turned-“Fire Fiend” Peter Braunstein from strip club to strip club across the Midwest, we hear the depraved journo’s victim has been trying to wrest herself free from the latest crime story to grip the local tabs. Sources say a number of the city’s news outlets have recently received legal letters from Lynda Goldman, a high-powered attorney—and partner at pitbull entertainment lawyer Marty Singer’s firm, no less—whom the former W mag staffer has hired to keep her personal details out of the press.
Though Goldman would not specify which publications have been contacted, she confirmed that she was retained “to encourage the media to behave in a responsible manner so that this victim isn’t victimized further.” The former W staffer—whose identity, while known in media circles, has been kept out of print—has been keeping a low profile since the Halloween attack, when Braunstein, a onetime co-worker at the fashion glossy, reportedly gained access to her Chelsea apartment by masquerading as a fireman, knocked her out with chloroform, and tied her to a chair before sexually molesting her for 12 hours.
“I’ve been dealing with some issues because we’re very concerned about her privacy while this guy is still at large,” said Goldman. “It’s obviously very disturbing that he’s still out there and that he’s evaded the authorities for all this time, so any kind of identifying information that could lead him or other people to locate her is a major invasion of privacy that could put her life in jeopardy.”
Among the published details she finds particularly worrisome are where the victim works, where she lives, and even the name of her next-door neighbor, the attorney said. “And that’s not an inclusive list,” she added.
While some have speculated that the victim hired a lawyer to keep her own identity under wraps until she is prepared to go public in some remunerative fashion, Goldman insists that’s not the case. “I wasn’t retained because she’s working on a book or movie or any nonsense like that,” she said. “I was retained because she was concerned, as anyone would be in her circumstance, about her privacy and her safety.” She added, however, that her client might be interested in telling her side of the story “somewhere down the road when this guy is incarcerated.”
Goldman—who explained she was chosen to represent her client because the two women “share a mutual friend”—said although she herself relies on newspaper reports for developments in the case, she is frustrated by how much info the media-savvy Braunstein might be gleaning from the coverage.
“Some of the reporting I’ve seen just seems to me incredibly irresponsible,” she said. “If I’m reading a report in the press of somebody saying, ‘We just saw him at x location going to all these strip clubs,’ don’t you think that he reads the papers and says, ‘Oh, guess I better not go to any more strip clubs?’” Asked whether she had considered the possibility that police had planted those stories to flush Braunstein out, Goldman admitted, “I don’t know what law enforcement does during these situations, but as a citizen reading this stuff, it just strikes me as foolish.”
Photo: NYDN



Regan Flack Fights Back

Publishing seductress Judith Regan has gotten away with her vindictive tantrums in the past, but sources say she may have chosen the wrong foe in her former PR director, Paul Crichton. Friends of the well-liked publicist say he hired an attorney to look into a possible libel suit after Regan dispatched a minion to smear him in the New York Post.
“Paul’s lawyer and his friends are all urging him to sue Regan and [Regan Books parent company] HarperCollins for defamation of character, slander, libel, whatever, for what they said about him in the Post,” says a source close to Crichton, referring to last Wednesday’s Page Six item in which Paula Conway—identified as “Regan Media’s interim PR director”—accused the publicist of clearing his desk “at like midnight” and sneaking away after being questioned about “unauthorized spending in his department.”
“It was all a lie—he was never under investigation for anything,” says the source. (HarperCollins reps declined to comment on a departing employee, but a company source confirmed to the New York Daily News’s Lowdown column that there was never an investigation.)
Furthermore, a top-level Regan Books employee said she didn’t know anything about Conway or an “interim PR director.” According to our source, that’s because “Paula is really just a freelance publicist who happens to be a close personal friend of Maureen Regan, Judith’s sister.” The two women are also co-authors of a book called The Beauty Buyble: The Top 100 Beauty Products of 2006, scheduled to be published by Regan’s imprint next year.
The real reason Crichton decided to leave—after shepherding 13 of Regan’s books onto the New York Times best-seller list—was that his boss was working him like a Siberian husky in the Iditarod, says our source. We’re told that the slight, 32-year-old publicist lost 10 pounds after taking on the responsibilities of associate publisher and director of marketing, in addition to his regular duties, when those positions were vacated in July.
“Paul worked his ass off, but Judith was insisting that he sign a three-year contract at the same pay he was receiving before he took on the additional jobs and, on top of that, move to L.A.,” where Regan recently moved her operations, the source says. “When he called her to say he wouldn’t sign and to give notice, she hung up on him. Anyway, you can’t blame him for not looking forward to working with Victoria Gotti, Janice Dickinson, and Kimora Lee—all of whom have books coming out next year.”
But while rumors have been circulating that Crichton may want to vent some of his frustrations by writing a tell-all detailing his ex-boss’s mean streak and infamous private exploits (like her ill-fated affair with wannabe Homeland Security czar Bernard Kerik; call it, The Devil Wears Nada) the publicist’s pal laughs the notion off, saying, “he’s no Bridie Clark.” Another former Regan Books employee, Clark is already hard at work on a roman à clef about the company—in which staffers are thinly disguised to skirt her confidentiality agreement, entitled Because She Can. Besides, Crichton may not have much time for writing. We’re told he’s starting a new job next Monday.
Crichton himself could not be reached for comment, and calls to a Regan Books publicist were not returned by press time.
Photo: PMC



Locklear and Sambora: Livin’ on a Prayer?

While no one was surprised to learn of Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey’s split last week, we hear music biz insiders are buzzing about the possible marital troubles of another, less-stage-managed Hollywood couple—Heather Locklear and Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora.
Long admired for sustaining one of the arena-rock world’s most stable marriages—their eleventh anniversary is later this month—the couple recently fell out over Sambora’s desire to give their 8-year-old daughter, Ava Elizabeth, a sibling, according to a source close to the band. We’re told the 44-year-old Locklear, who frequently complains about movie execs’ disdain for aging actresses, thinks a second child would hurt her chances at landing the sexy roles she specializes in.
“She doesn’t want another kid because she thinks she’s Hollywood royalty,” says our source. “But Richie is an only child and desperately wants another kid.”
Another strain on the couple is the fact that Sambora has just embarked on a seven-month, 20-country world tour with Bon Jovi to promote their new album Have a Nice Day—and we’re told the band is doing everything they can to convince him to “dump [Locklear] and move on.”
“The members of the band never liked her anyway, particularly Jon [Bon Jovi],” says the source. “The band’s a bunch of blue-collar stiffs from New Jersey who feel that they got lucky. They’re regular guys, and Heather is spoiled—she still thinks that’s she’s an ingénue.”
But Sambora isn’t the only one looking for a way out, we hear. According to our source, Locklear has been “stepping out” on her husband.
One person the Perfect Man actress has been spotted with frequently in recent months is her ex-husband, Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee. As the New York Post’s Page Six reported, Locklear invited the tattoo-festooned sex-tape auteur back to her place with six female friends after celebrating her birthday at a Manhattan restaurant in October. Apparently she’s forgiven Lee for his affair with porn star Debi Diamond, the incident that ended their marriage of seven years in 1993.
Asked about the marital issues, a spokeswoman for Locklear and Sambora said, “There is absolutely no truth to any of this. They are fine.”
Photos: NYDN



Ahnold’s Foggy Recall in London Libel Case

Californians may not be happy with the lack of transparency in the Governator’s office, but none of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s political dodges quite compare to his slipperiness in dealing with Anna Richardson, a British TV personality who is suing him for libel.
Richardson first became a thorn in Schwarzenegger’s beefy flank when she was quoted in various news stories—including a landmark Premiere magazine article headlined “Arnold the Barbarian”—saying that the actor had pulled her onto his lap and pinched her nipple after a December 2000 interview for her London-based show Big Screen. When Schwarzenegger’s team attacked her in an October 2003 Los Angeles Times story about the then-candidate’s wandering hands—claiming that she’d hopped on his lap, seductively cupped her breasts and asked, “What do you think of these?”—the 35-year-old vicar’s daughter filed a libel suit against the governor and two of his associates.
Since then, we hear, the governor and his lawyer, Marty Singer, have tried every lowdown trick in the book to weasel out of the lawsuit—even going so far as to refuse to accept the service of legal papers for nearly a year, according to a source close to Richardson. (We’re told Singer only relented after her barrister, Graham Atkins, sent him at least three personal letters demanding that he take the case seriously.)
Schwarzenegger has also tried to distance himself from the suit, saying Sheryl Main (the Columbia Tristar flack quoted in the L.A. Times story, now a member of the governor’s communications team) and Sean Walsh (a former campaign spokesman, now director of the state Office of Planning and Research) were not acting with his knowledge or at his behest when they disseminated the slur. Our source says that, in papers filed in his defense, the governor has even denied any official connection to “Californians for Schwarzenegger,” the nonprofit reelection committee that is paying the trio’s legal fees. If that’s the case, the governor may want to refresh his memory. According to municipal documents, Schwarzenegger owns Main Street Plaza, the Santa Monica building that houses the committee’s headquarters.
In another curious passage in his defense papers, we’re told that Schwarzenegger “denies that he has a history of sexual misconduct… and the Claimant must prove the grounds on which she alleges that any such history is now admitted or well-documented or was at the time of his election campaign a matter of public knowledge.” While the governor may somehow be under the impression that Brits can’t read American publications, which have obsessively covered Arnold’s multiple groping allegations, the governor’s own admission that “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” and that he’s “behaved badly” towards women have been trumpeted by a dozen UK papers as well.
At least Richardson is having it easier than Rhonda Miller. After the former stuntwoman announced the day before Schwarzenegger’s election that he had grabbed her breasts, Walsh told reporters that Miller had a history of prostitution and drug abuse. Though the allegations were completely untrue, Miller’s suit was overturned in court thanks to America’s defendant-friendly libel laws. (Luckily for Richardson, Brit law puts the burden of proof on the defense in such cases.)
At the end of the day, Schwarzenegger’s maneuvers will probably come to naught. Ever since a judge declared the governor was “not peripheral” to the case, experts have predicted that a settlement is the only way for Schwarzenegger to avoid an inconvenient appearance before a judge in a powdered wig—probably during his 2006 reelection campaign.
Reached for comment, Singer declined to discuss his defense strategy—”I’m not an English attorney, but I’ve been told that you’re not supposed to comment on papers filed”—but denied that he or Schwarzenegger had resisted being served. “We resisted jurisdiction,” Singer said. “That’s why the papers weren’t accepted, per se. When the process server came to the office, it was voluntarily accepted. There was no evasion of service.” The high-priced attorney did confirm that there had been “numerous communications between me and the plaintiff’s lawyer,” but he wouldn’t go into detail. As for a settlement, “we haven’t discussed it,” he said, adding, for good measure, “You’re a tabloid reporter, and these are stupid questions.”
A spokesman for the governor could not be reached by deadline.
Photo: NYDN



Paris Hilton’s Ken Doll

We hear Bob Woodward’s not the only respected journalist to have his objectivity swayed by access to the high and mighty. Sources at Us Weekly say the mag’s West Coast editor, Ken Baker, has gotten a little too close to Paris Hilton, and that his not-so-secret obsession with his number-one source is affecting his coverage.
According to insiders at the gossip glossy, the 35-year-old Baker spends a large part of his day on the phone with Paris, and insists on putting a positive spin on anything published about the heiress—much to the consternation of his boss, Janice Min. “I think this goes far beyond a crush,” confides a friend of Hilton’s. “Every time her phone rings, it’s Ken. He calls more than any other guy, even more than her boyfriends.”
The relationship has clearly benefited Baker, who is seen as something of a wunderkind in the business for his ability to bring in celebrity exclusives. Since Paris first appeared on the national scene in 2003 with her infrared sex tape, Us Weekly has broken the lion’s share of Hilton-related scoops—her break-up with Nick Carter, her harrowing account of her hacked Sidekick ordeal, and her engagement to Paris Latsis. (The couple’s breakup, we broke. US weekly followed up a week later with the “official” story, straight from Hilton herself.)
What could the two possibly be talking about? According to a mag insider, “Paris uses Ken to plant negative items about her enemies, like Nicole Richie.” In fact, one of the memos found on Hilton’s pilfered Sidekick—“tell ken about jess trying to bone JT”—was widely deciphered as a reminder to tell Baker that Jessica Simpson was stalking the wild Timbersnake. (The phone’s address book, conveniently enough, contained Baker’s digits, too.)
Even in public, Baker has made little attempt to conceal his admiration for his prize canary: he once told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteran, “When it comes to Paris Hilton, you either love her, loathe her, or lust after her, but either way … you have to admit she’s fascinating,” and even based a character on her—the inventively named London Marriott—in his new satirical roman a clef, Hollywood Hussein.
Sadly, the feeling apparently isn’t mutual: “Paris thinks it’s funny when he calls, and will sometimes taunt and even abuse him,” says Hilton’s pal. “She brags that he’s obsessed with her and wants to fuck her.” That’s gratitude for you.
Asked about his special friendship with the hotel heiress, Baker played down his role in bringing home the Hilton bacon and denied there was any “quid pro quo” involved. “Paris has chosen to give exclusive interviews to Us on several occasions because, I would imagine, she realizes our young readership is her fan base,” he said.
“Also, Us Weekly has covered several major news events concerning Paris Hilton with aggressive journalism. For example, we were the only magazine to run a cover on her Sidekick scandal and, most recently, we broke news that Paris had ‘stolen’ Mary Kate Olsen’s boyfriend. I’d imagine Paris would have prefered these stories weren’t given so much coverage, but as a news magazine that is our responsibility to our readers.”
Baker went on to say that the idea Paris toyed with him on the phone was a “fiction,” adding that he hadn’t interviewed her in over a month. “If you hear from her, tell her I said ‘Hi!’”
We tried to, but Hilton’s crisis manager, Elliot Mintz, did not return calls or e-mails, and her publicist, PMK’s Jack Ketsoyan, was “traveling” and could not be reached.
Previously:
When Tom Met Paris
Paris-dise Lost
Photo: US Weekly



Rick Hilton Ticks off Cartier

While Paris Hilton’s high-profile bad behavior has brought her international acclaim, her father Rick Hilton seems to lack the Midas touch of turning personal obnoxiousness into celebrity gold. According to a source who spotted the reality show paterfamilias at the Cartier flagship store in Manhattan Monday afternoon, Hilton left patrons and staff there appalled at his bad manners.
“I was sitting next to him on the sofa, and he had this very arrogant posture, with his ankle over his knee and his arm slung over his chair while he talked loudly on his cell phone,” says our source, who was waiting to pick up a watch. “I knew I knew him from somewhere, and then a young woman [from Cartier] approached him, saying, ‘Hilton! Hilton! Mr. Hilton!’ He didn’t move, he didn’t acknowledge anybody, he just kept gabbing on his cell phone, saying, ‘I don’t know why I kept this watch, I liked the other one I had.’ Yap, yap, yap.”
We’re told that when customers complained and asked the clerk if they could be helped while the flush-faced 50-year-old hotel heir chatted away on his phone, “She said, ‘Oh, I have to take care of Mr. Hilton,’ and kind of rolled her eyes.” Visibly annoyed, the clerk called out, “Mr. Hilton!” and he closed his phone and “went up to take care of whatever business he had to take care of.”
As soon as Hilton left, the clerk turned to our source and cracked, “Oh well, I guess you can’t buy class.”
Called for comment, an employee at the Cartier store on Fifth Avenue and 52nd Street said she did not recall the incident. Hilton could not be reached by press time.
Photo: PMC



Jacko’s White House Connection

Gay pornographer Marc Schaffel may be suing his former close friend Michael Jackson, but we hear that the filmmaker was once very useful to the King of Pop—thanks, in part, to his highly placed contact within the White House.
Schaffel—who recently aired a phone message on Good Morning America in which the singer declares, “I love you, Marc. I really need you to get $7 million for me as soon as possible”—is seeking $3 million in loans to Jackson that remain unpaid. But not long ago he was loyally working as the gloved one’s business partner and producer on both his disastrous 2001 album Invincible and a 9/11 tribute concert Jackson planned to hold in Washington D.C. Jacko watchers may also recall Schaffel’s star turn as an unindicted co-conspirator in the singer’s most recent round of pedophilia allegations.
It was for the 9/11 tribute project that Schaffel (who, under the nom de porn “Marc Fredericks,” has directed over 400 gay porn titles including The Man With the Golden Rod and Cocktales), turned to David Kuo, then an adviser to President Bush and the deputy director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.
Jackson’s script featured a little boy holding the hand of an older man on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial while 50 pop stars, including Britney Spears and Carlos Santana, sang the treacly song in the shadow of America’s 16th president. There was just one snag: in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Washington’s memorial sites were closed or heavily secured. According to Joe Becker, a West Wing producer enlisted to work on the video for Jackson’s tribute, Kuo was the team’s “man in the White House.”
Despite the lockdown, Jackson and Schaffel were cleared to make the video at the site. “Representatives of the Parks Service said that the go ahead for us to use the Lincoln Memorial had come straight from the White House,” Becker recalls, adding that Jackson returned Kuo’s favor by providing backstage passes to a concert at RFK Stadium in D.C., and that the presidential adviser then “invited members of my staff to the concert and had them over to the White House mess hall for lunches.”
In the end, the project was scuttled after Schaffel’s XXX-rated resume became public. Becker says he lost $120,000 of his own money that he had invested in the filming, expecting to be reimbursed.
“When it came out that Schaffel was in gay porn and that Jackson had some serious legal problems, Kuo tried to act like he never knew them,” Becker said. “It would have been laughable if I hadn’t been taken for all that money.”
Reached for comment, Kuo acknowledged that he had met with both Schaffel and Jackson about the tribute—”I met with hundreds of people a week at the White House”—but denied that he had helped gain them access to the Lincoln Memorial. “After 9/11 the White House was tasked with reaching out to people from the charitable world and Jackson had gotten in touch with us about some song that he was doing just like he had done ‘We are the World,’” Kuo said. “I didn’t have a relationship with either guy, and I never invited staff on the project to come eat lunch at the cafeteria.”
Kuo claims that concert promoter Clear Channel, not Jackson, provided his backstage passes to the RFK concert. And his opinion of Jackson? “I met him for a few minutes,” Kuo said, “and I had no particular reaction.” Kuo insisted that as far as he knew, no pedophilia charges had been brought against Jackson at the time.
Kuo has since stepped down from the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives to take a contributing editor position at beliefnet.org, which recently published his attack on the administration for not doing enough for religious groups (“There was minimal senior White House commitment to the faith-based agenda,” he wrote). A spokeswoman for the office did not return calls by press time.
Photos: ABC and Time Warner Boookmark



Is Bubba Hedging His Bets For ‘08?

Though the pundits have all but ordained her as the Democrats’ next presidential nominee, it hasn’t been all smooth sailing for Sen. Hillary Clinton. Publicly at least, the junior Senator from New York still insists she hasn’t made up her mind about a presidential run. But while her coy denials and growing war chest have kept many Democratic opponents on the sidelines, at least one party poobah has not been shy about checking out her competition. Sources close to the Democratic National Committee claim that Bill Clinton has recently held a series of secret meetings with Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, a much-hyped party moderate who is rapidly emerging as his wife’s most significant challenger for the Democratic nomination.
The affable, press-friendly Warner recently sealed his star status in the party after engineering the election of his lieutenant governor, Tim Kaine, to take his place in the governor’s mansion, handing the Dems one of their most significant electoral victories in traditionally red-state Virginia earlier this month. Sources say the former president has grown enamored of Warner, a detail-oriented policy wonk who, like Clinton, rose to prominence as the moderate governor of a conservative Southern state.
Even as she fights off competition from the right, Hillary has other problems to worry about. As a host of prospective opponents, including senators John Kerry, Joe Biden, and Barack Obama, have lined up to demand a swift departure from Iraq, Mrs. Clinton’s stay-the-course message has eroded her support among the party’s progressives. Furious over her refusal to join a growing chorus of Democratic voices calling for an immediate withdrawal, a few leading party doves are accusing the former first lady of putting politics before principle in an effort to cultivate New York’s Jewish vote.
“I think a lot of Democrats were surprised when she said that we should stay in Iraq at least through the December Iraqi elections,” says one high-level party insider. “But you can’t win New York State without the support of the state’s pro-Israel Jewish community.” While pundits claim that Democrat contendors historically need two thirds of the Jewish vote in New York to win a Senate campaign, Clinton received a mere 53 percent in her 2000 run against Rick Lazio—a scare she presumably doesn’t want to see repeated.
But the senator’s supporters dismiss this charge as “ridiculous,” pointing out that polls show that the state’s Jewish community is as divided about the war as the general electrorate is. “It’s just race baiting,” claims an aggreived Clinton pal who is outraged by the Washington whisper campaign. “Their justified opposition to the war has caused them to adopt the GOP’s worst tactics, but the poll numbers disprove the whole theory.”
Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, reps for the Clintons and Governor Warner could not be reached for comment.
Previously: Democrats, Start Your Engines
Photo: PMC

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Protest Too Much

Who on Earth would sign a petition demanding more Matthew Perry? These people, that’s who.