IT TOOK FOUR JOURNALISTS TO REPORT THIS STORY Roger Clemens used to throw baseballs. Then he was accused of juicing. And now he’s added serial philander to his repertoire. Is there anything this man can’t do? [NYDN]
Rob Lowe’s former nanny, 24-year-old Jessica Gibson, gave Today exec producer Jim Bell reason to grin today: She handed the morning show a major get in agreeing to sit down with Meredith Vieira.
Gibson was, of course, joined by her attorney Gloria Allred, who leaves no opportunity to defend a woman against media scrutiny untouched.
The Brothers & Sisters actor claimed Gibson was trying to extort him to the tune of $1.5 million, or she’d go to the press with sexual harassment allegations; instead, he got a jump on the coming scandal and blogged about it on Huffington Post, and sued her for defamation.
But in Gibson’s suit, she says Lowe, among other things, exposed himself to her while she worked as his children’s caretaker.
As you’ve already seen, we have our suspicions about Lowe’s claims of extortion, but Gibson’s shaky performance this morning hasn’t lent her much credibility either.
Watch the clip below. CONTINUED »
Keep up people! Rob Lowe, dreamy star of Brothers & Sisters, is suing three former employees (two nannies and a chef), for violating non-disclosure agreements, theft, defamation, and infliction of emotional distress.
Lowe took to the Huffington Post on Monday before any of this became a headline, where he announced the nanny of kids Matthew and John Owen, Jessica Gibson, tried extorting he and wife Sheryl Berkoff for $1.5 million; if he didn’t pay up, she would allege the actor sexually harassed her. So he sued her for $1 million; ex-chef Peter Clements and ex-nanny Laura Boyce were sued separately, for violating non-disclosure agreements.
But much of this sounds quite suspicious. From the allegations on each side to the way the parties are handling the fall out. Is Lowe trying to shape himself into the victim when, theoretically, it’s quite the reverse? Quite possibly. Let’s look at where the suspicion falls.
First, Lowe is playing a game of aggressive defense. By blogging on HuffPo, he gets to frame the story as he sees fit, before the nanny or other employees can reach out to any of the tabloid press to tell their side. Commanding the direction of the story is crucial, and being first out of the gate, he gets the prize as the sympathetic party. It’s a smart PR move, whether he’s guilty or innocent.
Second, Lowe claims he’s the victim of alleged extortion, but refuses the help of law enforcement officials, who offered to open a criminal investigation. When the police get involved, Lowe could lose control of the situation’s press spin. Authorities would also have interview the ex-employees he’s accusing, which means their version of events would become public fodder. For now, Lowe gets to maintain the upper hand. But, generally speaking, victims of extortion refuse police help when they want to handle the matter privately, usually by meeting the blackmailer’s demands, so nothing reaches the press. But in this instance, Lowe volunteered to make headlines, guaranteeing the details of the scandal would become public, sooner rather than later. That he doesn’t want police help after airing the situation publicly rings sketchy. (TMZ says Lowe and his attorney didn’t want police help because it would cause the three ex-employees to go silent.)
Third, CONTINUED »
Like most members of the media, we here at Jossip firmly believe Barack Obama is going to win the Democratic primaries, and then usher in an era of change, unicorns, and free beer and candy for all Americans.
Shockingly, some people do not share this belief. One of them is Mark Crispin Miller, a professor of media studies at NYU, and author of The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder, and Fooled Again to The Real Case for Electoral Reform. He is also the editor of an upcoming anthology on election fraud, Loser Take All: Election Fraud and the Subversion of Democracy 2000-2008, which comes out next week, conveniently.
Since we haven’t written books on election fraud, and he has, we dispatched intern Anastasia to get the scoop on his zany ideas. The professor also shared his thoughts on the media’s coverage of the election and why even Heidi Montag can’t get him to vote for John McCain.
Full disclosure: Miller’s also Anastasia’s professor at some flea bag school called New York University. She’d like point out that she does not necessarily agree with his assertions and doesn’t want the Republican party to kill her in her sleep.
Rob Lowe’s aggressive defense against the allegations of sexual harassment began normally enough, with a blog item on Huffington Post. Too bad his public display is being met with equally questionable follow-ups. Namely, he doesn’t want the help of the Santa Barbara County Sheriff, which heard about Lowe’s extortion ordeal and offered its services. Instead, Lowe is suing the axed nanny, Jessica Gibson, for $1 million on claims of defamation, inflicting emotional distress, and violation of a confidentiality agreement; she’s the won who allegedly wanted $1.5 million in hush money. Meanwhile, Lowe’s chef, Pete Clements, said he only found out about Lowe’s claims from a voicemail his mother left him. The actor alleges Clements had sex on his bed “with third parties,” stole meds from the medicine cabinet, overcharged the family for food, and tampered with security cameras. To hide the MSG he was sneaking into the food.
On the first season of ABC’s excellent Brothers & Sisters – which we’ve already managed to plug today – Rob Lowe’s character, presidential hopeful Sen. Robert McAllister, escapes an extortion claim when fiance Kitty Walker (Calista Flockhart) enlists the help of gay brother and attorney Kevin, who digs up dirt (illegitimate child!) on the blackmailer (who threatened to expose the senator for not being the war hero he allowed others to think he is), forcing the evil-doing hopeful to abandon his tell-all threats and retreat.
Why our drawn-out plot synopsis? Because now the bones-jump-able Lowe is facing a real life extortion claim!
He and wife Sheryl are being targeted by a former employee, who wants $1.5 million in exchange for keeping quiet about sexual harassment charges — which, naturally, are entirely false, according to the actor. CONTINUED »
Some things are just easier to understand when explained by children.
And the saga continues! For those of you not keeping up - and who can blame you? - Teddy Pedersen dropped jaws yesterday when he told the press that he used to canoodle with former NJ Gov. Jim McGreevey and then-girlfriend, Dina Matos-McGreevey.
The allegations punched a big hole in Dina’s story - she had no inkling of Jim’s gay ways. Sensing her advantage slipping - and the press light turning - Dina issued a statement denying Pedersen’s carnal claims, which in turn spurred Jim to release his own confirmatory statement, which then sparked yet another assertion from Pedersen:
When news broke of Elliot Spitzer’s call girl rendezvous (let it not be lost that we’re using both a singular and plural word here), MSNBC’s guests were aghast the public was paying so much attention to a silly little sex scandal — that was about to tear Albany politics apart. Not to mention the not unsubstantial event of potentially naming New York’s first black, and blind, governor.
“You know, big deal, married man goes to prostitute!” exclaimed commentator Alan Dershowitz, who was Harvard’s youngest professor at age 28. “In Europe, this wouldn’t even make the back pages of the newspaper. It’s a uniquely American story. We’re a uniquely, you know, pandering society and hypocritical society, when it comes to sex.”
Yes, let’s follow European policy on this one: A man whose platform rests on ethics reform, and who took pride in busting a prostitution ring, sleeps with a call girl. Proceed directly to Go. CONTINUED »
Look how well American Idol producers got their contestants on message! Who’s got a copy of the talking points memo Nigel Lithgow & Co. distributed to cast members instructing them on how to respond to David Hernandez’s gay stripping days? “We live in a bubble,” they say. How quaint. And kudos to ET’s Kevin Frazier for following up with “worthwhile questions”; working for the tabloid machine must be soul crushing. [ET]
First Lou Pearlman and the Backstreet Boys, now Chris Stokes and B2K. The boy band’s former member Raz-B now claims Stokes and TUG Management co-head Marques Houston raped him and, possibly, his bandmates, forcing them into orgies with industry professionals and friends. For what it’s worth, Omarion (through PR firm 5W), is denying anything of the sort ever took place — which, whether true or not, is likely the wisest career move. To round this one out, Stokes claims Raz-B is just in it for the attention. [SH]
“The scandal-plagued politician and his stoically supportive spouse.” We’ve seen this scene a thousand times and yet, for whatever reason, it continues to transfix.
But what is it about this so-predictable-it’s-almost-cliché tableau that nonetheless has us so entranced? Is it, as some lady we’ve never heard of* postulates, that “if you see a guy standing next to his wife, it offers some explanation that he might be telling the truth?”
Or is it that we’re all, essentially, voyeurs, overgrown high school girls prone to spurts of schadenfreude and juvenile meanness, and invariably drawn to moments rife with awkwardness and public depravity?
There’s nothing Keith Olbermann likes more than a gay Republican senate sex scandal. Which he proves by gleefully introducing this clip of Larry Craig’s lover same-sex urinal buddy describing their “intimate” encounter in the men’s lavatory.
While David Carr ushers in the third New York Times (one, two, three) piece dedicated to the Maria Bartiromo/CNBC/Citibank scandal, today we also hear from Post walkabout Cindy Adams on the matter:
SPEAKING of lots more, there’s lots more on this long-going tete-a-tete 40,000 feet up twixt CNBC’s married Maria Bartiromo and her good friend, very good friend, like very very good friend Todd Thomson. They’ve been gossip for 18 months. Thomson was just bounced from his Citigroup top job for, among other things, lending her his company’s plane. On one flight from China where he told underlings to find their own way home, he told them to do it on the company’s dime so he could fly high in the sky with his American pie.
“Lots more,” like, oh, they were having an affair? Ya don’t say, Cinds. About the only folks not reporting that “news” is CNBC. But it’s nice to see your octogenarian audience clued in.
You gotta hand it to Lindsay — she’s not going down without a fight. Between the drunken emails, the tumultuous relationship with occasional BFF Paris, and the most forgiving AA sponsor we’ve ever seen, Lindsay “Firecrotch” Lohan has put up a more than “adequite” showing this year.
But, in the end, it just wasn’t enough to overtake the ever-modest Britney Spears, (whose vagina has graced the pages of this blog more times than we’d care to relate), for the title of “Most Contraversial Celebrity of 2006.” And Spears, whose 2006 highlights range from using baby Sean Preston as an airbag to unceremoniously dumping Kevin Federline via text-message, has more than outdone herself the past few weeks. While Fed-Ex was out touring to promote his trainwreck of a rap album, Brit was cozying up to J.R. Rotem, a buddy of Federline’s who may or may not have sampled Paris Hilton’s blind stars along the way.
And she’s planning a comeback album, y’all!
Honorable mentions go out to Mel Gibson, Tom Cruise and Paris herself for their invaluable contributions. Next up: The battle between Dina Lohan and Anna Nicole Smith for “Worst Mother of the Year” accolades.
Kevin Federline is prepared to wax nostalgic on Britney Spears, if the new issue of Star is to be believed. Ahem. The book K-Fed is planning will supposedly tell all on Britney’s drinking, drugging, and lesbian tendencies. And he’s ready to go forward with it — unless, so the story goes, Spears pays out a bit more than the prenup stipulates.
“Kevin is either hoping a publisher will pay him big money for the book,” a source told the tab, “or that Britney will cough up more cash than what’s in their prenup [an estimated $360,000 in spousal support plus $7 million from the sale of their Malibu, Calif., home] to keep him from spilling the beans.”
Federline wants sole custody of their two children as well as a settlement of at least $20 million, reports Star, and is alleging that he can “prove that Britney is an unfit mother” by revealing her partying ways both while she was pregnant and when their babies were born.
And if concert ticket sales are any indication, one lucky publisher is sure to have a bestseller on its hands.
Exclusive
In our never-ending mission to chronicle the philandering of top level executives at media companies, we’re pleased to bring you word that E! network president Ted Harbert is said to be sleeping with Chelsea Handler, the host of The Chelsea Handler Show, which appears on – you guessed it – the E! channel.
But don’t get too excited: It’s not like Harbert is cheating on his wife of nearly 30 years or anything. Well, technically he is, but they’re separated and on their way to a finalized divorce in the coming months. But it’s certainly worth noting that it was Harbert who personally greenlighted Handler’s show, which, ironies of ironies, carries the tagline “From one-night stands to kinky classrooms to a spa day with Gary Coleman, this broad’s not afraid to get to the bottom of things.”
And here you thought Rupert Murdoch and Wendi Deng owned the media-chieftan-sleeping-with-talent scandal.
Tonight, you can look forward to the second of the two-part series WCBS is running on Golan Cipel, the man who was either ex-New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey’s lover or sexual harassment victim. After fleeing the U.S. to salvage career and realizing there’s no hope of that once you’re at the center of a gay sex scandal, Cipel returns for a walk-through of the two-bedroom condo where McGreevey claimed the two made love — and where Cipel claims he was on the receiving end of unwanted advances. But the fun doesn’t stop there, where McGreevey left off. Tonight’s segment has Cipel chronicling additional instances of sexual harassment from the Gay American. And really, if you’re not going to be able to catch O.J. Simpson’s faux confession, this is the closest you’re gonna get to scandal porn. Can we say Sweeps Week?
The Rachael Ray sex scandal that broke this morning in Rush & Molloy via the National Enqurier is about to go deeper. If you’re just joining us, a one Jeannine Walz is claiming she was paid to take part in wild, “degrading” sex acts with Ray’s husband John Cusimano back in 2000. Naturally, Ray’s camp is denying the story, from the cocaine and pot use and spitting in his face to the $500, twice-per-month sex sessions. Even with the Enquirer running photos of Cusimano and Walz together, the burgeoning media mogul claims there’s nothing to see here.
Speaking through their rep, Ray and Cusimano told us they found The Enquirer story “absolutely laughable. It is obvious to us the lengths that tabloids go to create stories. It’s just sad when they take unwarranted shots at the people you care about the most.”
The Enquirer also features a photo of Cusimano and Walz - taken, according to the tab, in New York on Nov. 6. A friend of the couple said the photo looked staged and stated, in fact, that Cusimano and Ray “couldn’t be happier.”
Now we hear the Enquirer is about to unleash more photo evidence: some 21 photos in all with Cusimano and his sadist lover together. That’s a lot of Photoshopping, even for an AMI tab spending David Pecker’s dollars.
Exclusive
It wouldn’t be proper to begin the week without more news on the Us Weekly-Ken Baker scandal front. After last week’s merry-go-round with news of the magazine’s west coast exec editor refusing to pay a measily three-figure bill from publicist Jessica Meisels for help with his June charity poker event – and gossip columns from Page Six to Lowdown trying to get their newspaper inches involved – the tabloid went after Meisels where it counts: their editorial. At the end of last week, Us‘ New York office was last seen making ominous phone calls to Meisels, threatening to end its support for any of her clients. They also told her if she had a problem with anyone at Us, she should’ve gone to the magazine first, not the media blog you’re reading right now.
Which would make sense, if only Meisels was our source. But, hey, 1290 Sixth? She’s not — and we only tell you that in hopes you two can become friends again. But that doesn’t mean Meisels hasn’t been talking to us. Under pressure from Us‘ editors, she’s gone and denied our report.
Fingerprint Communications maintains a positive relationship with US Weekly and the magazine’s staffers. … Fingerprint Communications has worked on two events for Head To Hollywood including the poker event in vegas. Our fee for the event was paid.
But Jessica is just about the only one willing to speak on the record. Us‘ editor Janice Min, meanwhile, refuses to speak to us for publication. We’ve asked her – over the course of regular email chats discussing these matters – to confirm or deny the allegations we’ve exclusively reported (from Kitson’s legal claims to Baker’s unethical payola scandals), and not once has she provided an on the record response.
She did, however, tell the name-misspelling New York Times the magazine “absolutely [does] not” blacklist merchants or demand free merch in exchange for editorial. Cue laughter from one block south at People.
(Photos, L to R: Ken Baker and Carmen Electra at the June 3 poker event; Jessica Meisels at her birthday party with Nicky and Paris Hilton)
Earlier: Breaking: Us Weekly Threatening Jessica Meisels Over Ken Baker’s Unpaid Bills
Related: All Ken Baker, Us Weekly, and Jessica Meisels coverage
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