| Brinkley's Divorce Sensational testimony about Christie Brinkley's estranged husband opened their divorce trial, giving the public a salacious peek into the proceedings. Her husband, architect Peter Cook, testified that he gave a $300,000 payoff to a teenage mistress, that he spent thousands of dollars for online porn each month and that he carried on extramarital trysts in this office and his wife's Hamptons homes. Diana Bianchi, the young woman whose affair with Cook set off a tabloid frenzy and ended the couple's marriage, testified that he hid cash for her under a rock and gave her $15,000 to help her buy a car in 2005."That is the man who's come before this court and asked for custody of his 13-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter," said Brinkley's lawyer, Robert Stephan Cohen. Brinkley and Cook married in 1996. She filed for divorce a decade later, after his affair with Bianchi exploded into public view."There is no way to make that right," said Cook's lawyer, Norman Sheresky. "Peter has apologized. He's cried his eyes out. He's lost his marriage." Cook and Brinkley are mainly disputing custody of the children. Cook met Bianchi, then 17, while she was working at a Hamptons toy store in 2004. He testified that he soon hired her to work at his architecture firm, paying her $20,000 to type magazine articles onto the company's Web site. Before long, he seduced her while they were working together in the office, she testified. "He had shown interest in me, and I reciprocated. He asked me how I would feel if he told me he was attracted to me," she said. "I wasn't taken aback, but I wasn't really against it." Bianchi said the two had sex about 10 times before their relationship ended in late 2005. Cook counted about 12 rendezvous, some at the office, some at Brinkley's homes in the Hamptons. Tearing up as he testified, Cook said he showered Bianchi with spending money and other gifts. The $300,000 payout came in May 2007. Cook said he was trying to protect himself and his family from scandal and was concerned that Bianchi might file a sexual harassment lawsuit. No lawsuit was ever filed. |
| Allen Porn Habit Pop star Lily Allen likes to unwind after a hard day's touring by tuning into the local porn channel.She reveals she watches porn on TV wherever she is in the world because "the language of love is universal", but she admits she isn't a fan of "sick and twisted" Japanese blue movies. She says, "When I travel around the world there often isn't anything to watch on TV, especially when they don't speak English. But watching porn is fine as it doesn't need words. It's sort of universal. I watch a lot of it and in my opinion the local porn in Japan is very sick and twisted." |
| Boy George Cancels Boy George's plan for a North American tour has run into problems. He has been forced to canceled his summer plans after U.S. authorities denied him a visa to enter the country.George had planned to officially kick off his 25-city tour in Aspen, Colo., on July 10, and was to throw in a free concert at the New York City Department of Sanitation's Family Day in August. He worked for the department in 2006 while performing court-ordered community service in a drug case. George's managers issued a statement saying he had been refused a visa because he's awaiting trial in London on charges that he falsely imprisoned a man. The charges stem from a report in April that a 28-year-old man claimed he was chained and threatened at George's London apartment, where he had gone to work as a photo model. George has pleaded not guilty. "I was really hoping that the issue would be resolved and that some kind soul at the U.S. Visa Office would realize that if the police in Britain placed no restrictions on my movements, that should have been good enough for them," George said in a statement. "I am very sorry that I will not see all my American fans this year, but I wish them a happy and healthy Fourth of July. I include the Visa Office in those good wishes and realize they are doing a very difficult job and I just got unlucky," he said. George intends to reschedule his North American tour for next winter. He'll continue his concert tours of South America and the United Kingdom in September and October. |
| George Carlin Dies Legendary comedian George Carlin, perhaps most famous for his routine "Seven Words You Can Never Say on TV," dies at 71. He succumbed to heart failure. Carlin leaves behind not only a series of memorable routines, but a legal legacy, his most celebrated monologue, a frantic, informed riff on those infamous seven words, led to a Supreme Court decision on broadcasting offensive language. "Carlin, who had a history of heart trouble, went into St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica on Sunday afternoon complaining of chest pain and died later that evening," said his publicist, Jeff Abraham. He had performed as recently as last weekend at the Orleans Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas."He was a genius and I will miss him dearly," Jack Burns, who was the other half of a comedy duo with Carlin in the early 1960s. Carlin constantly breached the accepted boundaries of comedy and language, particularly with his routine on the 'Seven Words,' all of which are still taboo on network TV.Despite his reputation as unapologetically irreverent, Carlin was a television staple through the decades, serving as host of the "Saturday Night Live" debut in 1975 and appearing over 130 times on "The Tonight Show." He produced 23 comedy albums, 14 HBO specials, three books, a couple of TV shows and appeared in several movies, including "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" in 1989. He won four Grammy Awards, each for best spoken comedy album, and was nominated for five Emmy awards. Last week, it was announced that he was being awarded the 11th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Carlin started his career on the traditional nightclub circuit pairing with Burns to spoof TV game shows, news and movies. "George was fairly conservative when I met him," said Burns, describing himself as the more left-leaning of the two. Carlin was born on May 12, 1937, and grew up in the Morningside Heights section of Manhattan. After dropping out of high school in the ninth grade, he joined the Air Force in 1954. While in the Air Force, he started working as an off-base disc jockey at a radio station in Shreveport, La., and after his discharge in 1957, took an announcing job at WEZE in Boston. In 1960, he left with Burns for Hollywood to pursue a nightclub career as comedy team Burns & Carlin. His first break came just months later when the duo appeared on Jack Paar's "Tonight Show."Carlin is survived by wife Sally, daughter Kelly, and brother Patrick Carlin. |
| Campbell Pleads Guilty Naomi Campbell was sentenced to 200 hours of community service after pleading guilty to assaulting two police officers after an "air rage" incident at Heathrow Airport. She was also ordered to pay $400 to each of the police officers she attacked and $300 to Miles Sutherland, the captain of the British Airways plane she disrupted, in addition to a $4,600 fine. She could have received six months jail time and a heavy fine for the six offenses stemming from a violent altercation in April with British Airways cabin crew and police who removed her from a flight in handcuffs while waiting on the tarmac at Heathrow. Prosecutors said Campbell used foul language, kicked and spat at police, accused airline personnel of racism and threatened to sue them after she was told that one of her bags had not been placed on the flight to Los Angeles in April. Campbell was traveling in first class and became abusive to the captain after he left the cockpit to personally explain to her why her bag, and those of many other travelers, had not been placed on the flight. Prosecutors said she shouted a number of obscenities and tried to kick the police who were summoned to remove her after she "ordered" Sutherland to delay takeoff and look for her missing piece of luggage. At one point, she accused the airline staff of being racist and said they would not have removed her from the flight if she was white. She told a white policewoman that the only reason she was being arrested was because she was "black and famous" and threatened to sue. Magistrate Peter Yiacoumi told Campbell that she was getting credit for past good behavior and for pleading guilty at the first hearing, but said the crimes could not go unpunished. Prosecutors said she kicked and spat at police officers, used foul language repeatedly, and had to be removed from the plane."These offenses are aggravated because they were committed within a lengthy incident in a confined space on an aircraft," he said. "Whilst we accept that the loss of your suitcase would have been stressful, your subsequent behavior cannot be justified." After the sentencing, Campbell's spokesman, Alan Edwards, said she was "very, very relieved the incident was over." He said she felt she had been treated fairly and predicted she would work hard during her community service. |
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