Free Republic

IT'S enough to make anyone's stiff upper lip quiver. Famously reserved "Monty Python" star John Cleese has had a messy breakup with a blabbermouth blonde who he claims lied to him about her age and revealed embarrassing details about his hair plugs, "nice package" and intensive anti-aging regimen. The startling revelations have blindsided Cleese, 69, who's kept a low profile ever since "A Fish Called Wanda" (1988).

PETER COLLIER and his brother Ian had never lived apart from their mother until she died. Now Peter has left the home filled with memories of his mum and is preparing to marry Donna, The sheet metal worker and his brother Ian worshipped the ground their mum Grace walked on A typical day would see the brothers leaving for work at 5.30am with sandwiches lovingly packed by their mum and returning to a hot tea at 5pm. Their only regular weekly outings consisted of escorting Grace to the hairdressers and the odd Sunday lunch at the local carvery. “She was...

The woman behind the John Edwards scandal has a wild past of sex and drugs so legendary her escapades were chronicled by novelist Jay McInerney. Before moving to Los Angeles and beginning a career as a film producer, Rielle Hunter, 42, was known as Lisa Druck, a New York City party girl. Hunter confessed to her sordid past on her Web site Being is Free, which was deleted from the Internet last April, soon after she ended her professional relationship with former presidential candidate John Edwards.Screen image of John Edwards' paramour Rielle Hunter from her Web site which is no...

CNBC's Erin Burnett knows what she likes in a man, though it's not clear she actually likes men as anything more than people who can buy her stuff. She wrote a piece for Men's Health magazine entitled "8 Ways to Impress Me." Her "8 Ways" aren't impressive, they're pretty sad. They pretty much boil down to "give me stuff and stay away." It's one thing to think this way, there are no doubt many people out there who do, it's quite another to tell the world. Here's one example:

Boy, 8, sued in ski crash Associated Press Originally published 12:21 p.m., December 20, 2007 Updated 03:42 p.m., December 20, 2007 VAIL — A 60-year-old man is taking an 8-year-old boy and his dad to court, claiming the third-grader caused a ski-slope collision that left the older man with a shoulder injury. David J. Pfahler of Allentown, Pa., filed suit in Denver federal court claiming Scott Swimm, of Vail, then 7, was skiing fast and recklessly when they ran into each other in January. Pfahler's suit says he suffered a torn shoulder tendon. The boy told Pfahler he was sorry...

DUBLIN, Ireland - Heather Mills McCartney, who is reportedly seeking millions of dollars in her breakup with Paul McCartney, denounced the world's rich as misers and snobs Wednesday. Mills McCartney delivered the critical comments during her 90-minute speech to the debating society of Trinity College Dublin. Former model Mills McCartney, 39, married the 65-year-old music legend in 2002 and gave birth to the couple's only child, Beatrice, a year later. But the couple separated last year, and McCartney filed for divorce alleging "unreasonable behavior" by his wife. Mills McCartney said she was reluctantly obliged to befriend the world's wealthy because...

Virgie Arthur, the mother of former Playboy playmate Anna Nicole Smith, has filed a libel lawsuit against a Houston TV station, CBS Studios Inc. and the late model's former companion, Howard K. Stern. The suit alleges that Stern arranged for Smith to appear in an Entertainment Tonight interview where the model stated that Arthur was complicit in Smith's childhood physical and sexual abuse. The lawsuit says the program aired on KPRC Channel 2 in Houston on Feb. 14, a week after Smith died at the age of 39. CBS Studios produces the program, which is broadcast locally on KPRC, an...

Paul McCartney has revealed his true feelings about his divorce from Heather Mills for the first time - and likened it to going through Hell. When Sir Paul was asked whether he had any regrets about the fall-out from the break-down of the four-year marriage, he momentarily dropped his guard and spoke candidly quoting Winston Churchill. The former Beatle said: 'Going through a divorce is a very painful thing. As Winston Churchill once said, "If you're going through Hell, keep going". The relevance of the quote - from the most prominent war strategist of modern times - will not have...

'Spectacular' Woman Seeks Rich Husband on Craigslist 'It's a Crappy Deal,' Retorts Investment Banker in E-Mail Thread That's Gone Viral By SUSAN DONALDSON JAMES Oct. 10, 2007 — Wall Street is abuzz about an intriguing merger proposition: A "spectacularly beautiful" 25-year-old woman placed an ad on Craigslist seeking a husband who makes at least $500,000 a year. The mystery woman -- under ad number 431649184 -- said "$250,000 won't get me into Central Park West," where one apartment recently sold for $42.4 million, the highest price ever paid for a condo in New York City. It wasn't her audacious proposition...

25 Year-Old Beauty Seeks Rich Banker (Updated) 05/10/2007 The following exchange took place on Craigslist - the investment banker's response is a classic! 'What am I doing wrong? Okay, I’m tired of beating around the bush. I’m a beautiful (spectacularly beautiful) 25 year old girl. I’m articulate and classy. I’m not from New York. I’m looking to get married to a guy who makes at least half a million a year. I know how that sounds, but keep in mind that a million a year is middle class in New York City, so I don’t think I’m overreaching at all....

McGreevey tells wife: You'll get zilch from me BY ADAM NICHOLS DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Saturday, September 15th 2007, 4:00 AM Jim McGreevey yesterday accused his soon-to-be-ex wife of "greedily" grabbing at the perks of being New Jersey's First Lady - and refusing to give them back. In legal papers packed with snide and catty comments, the openly gay McGreevey told estranged wife Dina Matos McGreevey she can expect to get nothing from him. Matos McGreevey had asked him to pony up $4,000 a month in alimony to help her live a lavish lifestyle like his. "Her jealousy and contempt...

We scoured the how-to-marry-rich literature and talked to society watchers, upscale matchmakers and wealth experts. And we pored over divorce news to see how spouse No. 1 was supplanted by spouse No. 2 (or 3). Unfortunately, those who had already made it to Fat City refused to say how they got there. "I am just not telling," said one billionaire's wife over her cellphone before hanging up. Nonetheless, our findings were encouraging. Marrying a billionaire is not beyond your grasp, as long as you're willing to work hard toward your goal. (Yes, hard work - albeit of a different kind...

Anna Nicole Smith collapsed in her hotel room at the Hard Rock Cafe and Casino in Hollywood, Fla., and was rushed to a hospital on Thursday. A Hollywood, Fla., fire department spokesman told MSNBC TV that the actress was unresponsive when the rescue unit arrived on the scene. Sources confirmed to Access Hollywood that Smith was transported to Memorial Regional Hospital shortly after 2 p.m. EST on Thursday. Access Hollywood also is reporting that Smith was intubated at the scene. Officials told the Miami Herald, "it does not look good."

Howard K. Stern just announced on Larry King that he's the Dad of Anna Nicole's Baby and that they're in love. That's all.

Diana Wanted to Become America's First Lady Paul Burrell with Princess Diana. (ABC News) By KATE SNOW NEW YORK, Sept. 12, 2006 — In his new blockbuster book, "The Way We Were," Paul Burrell says that Princess Diana had ambitions to become the first lady of the United States. "She knew a billionaire in America, and she suggested to him that if they were together. … His yearning to run in politics could lead to the White House, that one day she could be the first lady and she'd visit Britain on a state visit," Diana's former butler and confidant...

MONTCLAIR, Calif. -- A California man digging for gold in his front yard said he got "carried away" and ended up with a 60-foot-deep hole, authorities said. Norm Enrique, 63, bought a metal detector that he believed indicated there was gold in his yard, so he began digging near his front patio. He told authorities he only intended to go down three or four feet. Fire officials called to the scene Tuesday found two men hired by Enrique inside the unreinforced hole. They were using a bucket and rope to remove dirt. "We told him, 'You're done,"' said Montclair fire...

For those of you Republicans who cannot take a joke. STOP READING NOW! This Tonight Show parody was emailed to me this morning. You will love watching Coni "Shake that thang." Check it out...

A HIGH probability of a sharp slowdown in US economic growth and a slide in the dollar are likely to continue driving investment in gold this year, says precious metals consultancy GFMS in its Gold Survey 2006, launched yesterday. The main reason for gold’s current strength is investment demand rather than jewellery manufacturing, says GFMS chairman Philip Klapwijk. Inflationary pressure and political tension in the Middle East should also boost demand for gold. As the gold price performed well, it would attract new investors. “We’d only need to see a tiny slice of mainstream assets diverted into gold, which comparatively...

It's been a long and colorful journey for a girl from a small Texas town. Anna Nicole Smith went to work in a Houston strip club and wound up as the trophy wife of an aging multimillionaire, setting up an 11-year-long legal war over his estate that now has traveled all the way to the highest court in the land. The fight over the fortune of oil entrepreneur J. Howard Marshall II between the one-time Playboy Playmate of the Year and Marshall's youngest son, 67-year-old E. Pierce Marshall, goes before the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday. (snip) Since then, the...

John Kerry is responding to the President's speech this morning, and I may be mistaken, but did he just out and out call the President a liar??

All hail the gold digger!She's beautiful, intelligent, and very often has a master's degree or better. She's the type of girl the intelligence and diplomatic corps wish had a stronger love of country...and foreign ambassadors. She is cold and calculating. She is steely; the modern world of pop romance, Hollywood, and pulp literature all scorn her. She cares not at all. She is a man-eater. She is hated by all but one, but that one makes all the difference. And yet there is something wonderful about the gold digger when she appears in the press or in the movies. Seeing...

Check out Larry being interviewed with his trophy wife on Donny D right now. Oh man, I thought Anna Nicole was the defintion of a gold digger. I'm sure she loves him for his mind. That is just sad!

Marilyn Monroe's character didn’t make a secret of hunting for a rich man in “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," especially when she sang a tribute to diamonds ("a girl's best friend"). Thirty years later, Madonna satirized that shallow gal with dollar signs in her eyes in her pop hit “Material Girl.” Today, there are still plenty of examples in Hollywood (and beyond) of that good old-fashioned "gold digger" — Anna Nicole Smith (search) immediately comes to mind. But new statistics from the online dating company Match.com suggest a downtrend in the number of women looking to marry Mr. Moneybags — and, surprisingly,...

Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2005 9:39 a.m. EST Rush Limbaugh Divorce Finalized Rush Limbaugh's divorce has been "signed and sealed" in a Florida courthouse, the Palm Beach Daily News reports. The popular radio host returns to bachelor status after ending his marriage with his third wife, Marta. The paper said Circuit Judge Sandra Taylor "issued the final judgment Dec. 21 and sealed the 22-page settlement agreement, according to Monroe County (Key West) Circuit Court records." Marta, 45, a former aerobics instructor, had been married to the country's most famous radio host for 10 years. She will return to using her former...

DENVER - An attorney for the woman accusing Los Angeles Lakers (news) star Kobe Bryant of rape said Sunday she wants a public airing of her lawsuit in Denver federal court as soon as possible. L. Lin Wood said his client decided against filing a second, parallel suit in California state court because of fears that legal maneuvers there would delay a trial in the Denver suit. "We want to get this case in front of the public as soon as possible," Wood said. "I think that's an important factor in my client's mind," he said. The woman's lawsuit seeks...

AP-A federal appeals court Thursday threw out a judge's ruling that awarded $88.5 million to former Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith from the estate of her late husband, an oil tycoon who died at age 90 just over a year after they wed.

DENVER - Kobe Bryant's attorneys asked a judge Monday to make sure the NBA star doesn't have to answer questions about other "consensual relationships" as he defends himself against a civil lawsuit accusing him of rape. Bryant had promised to be available Monday or Tuesday to answer, for the first time, questions under oath about what happened at a mountain resort last year. However, in a filing released Monday in federal court, Bryant's lawyers said both sides couldn't agree on the kinds of questions the Los Angeles Lakers (news) star would be asked. They said planned questions about Bryant's history...

Katelyn Faber will give sworn testimony in February to lawyers for Kobe Bryant, whom she has accused of raping her, under a schedule adopted Wednesday in U.S. District Court. Lin Wood of Atlanta, Faber's attorney, said the two sides in her federal civil suit against the NBA basketball star agreed that the defense will take her sworn deposition, in which she will answer questions from Bryant's lawyers, on Feb. 1. Wood said a date for Faber's legal team to question Bryant has not yet been set, although lawyers on the two sides were trying for a date early in December....

DENVER - Kobe Bryant's attorneys have identified about 125 potential witnesses to testify in the civil lawsuit filed against him by the woman who accused him of sexual assault, attorneys told a judge Wednesday. Attorneys for Bryant and the 20-year-old woman met in Denver federal court for the first time to map out a preliminary schedule for the case. They agreed on a tentative May deadline to complete the required exchange of evidence. No trial date is being contemplated for now, L. Lin Wood, an Atlanta attorney representing the woman, said after the brief hearing before U.S. District Judge Richard...

DENVER - Three months after prosecutors dropped a sexual assault charge against Kobe Bryant, attorneys for the NBA star prepared to return to court for the first hearing in a civil lawsuit filed by his accuser. Neither Bryant nor the 20-year-old woman was expected in federal court for Wednesday's hearing in the suit, which seeks unspecified damages for pain, ridicule and scorn the woman says she has suffered since her encounter with Bryant at a Vail-area resort in June 2003. "Now it becomes a question of whether he or she are looking for some form of public vindication through a...

EAGLE, Colo. — Fourteen months after she accused Kobe Bryant of raping her, a young Colorado woman sat on the witness stand testifying about the encounter, answering probing personal questions and trying to explain sketchy details. But the scene did not play out in this tiny mountain community, where the national media already were gathering to cover the trial. Instead, it occurred in secret, two hours away at the Jefferson County Courthouse in the Denver suburb of Golden, where prosecutors staged a mock trial two days before jury selection was to begin. They wanted to gauge how their chief witness...

DENVER - A month after a hotel worker accused NBA star Kobe Bryant of rape, she allegedly told a friend that she was considering suing him in civil court and planned to use any money she won for breast implants, a koala bear and opening a recording studio. The details came in testimony from Sean Holloway, who knew the then-19-year-old woman from the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, according to court documents released Friday. During a closed hearing March 2, defense attorney Hal Haddon asked Holloway about a conversation with the woman near the end of July 2003, about...

    PARSING TERESA   by Mia T, 10.21.04   "I don't know Laura Bush.... I don't know if she's ever had a real job -- I mean, since she's been grown up..... [M]y validation of what I do and what I believe and my experience is a little bigger, because... I've had different experiences....." MISSUS HEINZ (KERRY) USA Today yesterday "I had forgotten that Mrs. Bush had worked as a schoolteacher and librarian, and there couldn't be a more important job than teaching our children..." MISSUS HEINZ (KERRY) cya issued within hours of publication     7 varieties doesn't...

Basketball star Kobe Bryant filed a formal answer Tuesday to Katelyn Faber's federal lawsuit, denying he raped her more than a year ago in Eagle County. "The plaintiff consented to all actions taken by Mr. Bryant during their encounter on June 30, 2003," the answer said. Bryant, who is married, has admitted having sex with Faber at the mountain resort where she was an employee and he was a guest, but he has insisted it was consensual. Bryant's answer agreed with Faber that, after he checked in, he asked her for a tour of the hotel. But it denied Faber's...

Katelyn Faber re-filed her sexual assault lawsuit against Kobe Bryant in federal court Thursday, using her real name. The lawsuit is virtually identical in every other respect to the one she filed Aug. 10 as "Jane Doe." Lawyers for the 21-year-old Eagle woman had asked Colorado U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch to let her remain anonymous. They said she had received death threats following her highly-publicized claim that she was sexually assaulted by the Los Angeles Lakers basketball star. But Matsch, after Bryant’s attorneys and the Rocky Mountain News objected separately, ruled that Faber’s lawsuit would be retitled on Oct....

Said she was sorry for misleading statements to cops OCTOBER 12--Weeks before the scheduled start of the Kobe Bryant trial, his female accuser wrote a letter apologizing for intentional misstatements she made when first interviewed last year by Colorado police. In a handwritten letter to state investigator Gerry Sandberg (a copy of which you'll find below), the woman claimed that one such "mix-up" was triggered by her concern that Detective Doug Winters, lead investigator on the Bryant case, "did not believe what had happened to me." The woman's letter, which was included in a stack of documents just released by...

<p>Two witnesses who saw Kobe Bryant's accuser shortly after her encounter with the NBA basketball star last year drew sharply different impressions of her emotional state, according to files released by the prosecutor.</p> <p>The young woman's supervisor at a mountain resort near Vail described her as "bubbly" and having "a big smile on her face" after the encounter in which she claimed Bryant had raped her. But a bellman at the hotel, a friend of the woman, told his father she was "crying uncontrollably, shaking, near hysteria."</p>

DENVER - Advocacy groups urged the media Thursday to refrain from identifying the woman accusing Kobe Bryant of rape while she pursues her civil lawsuit against the NBA star, despite a court ruling that will lift her anonymity in less than two weeks. The woman's attorneys had asked U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch to allow her to be known only as Jane Doe in court documents and during hearings. The judge rejected the request late Wednesday, saying it would be unfair to Bryant and that her privacy has already been invaded to the extent that granting her anonymity would have...

Accuser must use her real name in lawsuit, judge rules A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the woman who accused Kobe Bryant of rape must use her real name in the lawsuit she filed against him. U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch ordered her lawsuit, now titled "Jane Doe vs. Kobe Bryant," to be retitled on Oct. 20. He did not explain the delay in retitling. Bryant had filed a motion opposing the woman's effort to remain anonymous, as had the Rocky Mountain News. "Public confidence in the results of court proceedings require that they be open to observation," Matsch said...

September 27, 2004 -- Is she or isn't she? The lawyer for Kobe Bryant's accuser yesterday refused to deny reports his client is pregnant by a man she met while at a drug and alcohol treatment center in Florida, but insisted it's not why she declined to go forward with the case. Lin Wood called news reports that the 20-year-old woman is at least eight weeks pregnant "an invasion of privacy." Fox News reported that the woman — who claimed the Lakers star raped her in a hotel room in June 2003 only to tell prosecutors this month she could...

Teresa is habitually late for appearances, in love with the sound of her own voice, and believes that she is 'too old to be bossed around.' Friends think she is 'delightful, loving and kind hearted' but her step-daughters, Vanessa and Alexandra Kerry did not hit it off with her at first.'I thought, I love kids, kids love me, I'll be fine.' 'Baloney,' Teresa said. 'You have to treat stepchildren like pets. You're nice to them but don't get too close or they will chew you up. Well, I did it the other way.'In fact, we hear that the gals refer...

Geneva Says, ‘I Quit’ Poynter Online is a website for news people that says it’s “everything you need to be a better journalist.” Well, our old friend Geneva Overholser, who always wants to be a better journalist, has a big-time issue with Poynter Online. In the event you’ve forgotten who Overholser is, let me refresh your memory. She made some news herself when she was editor at the local paper a few years ago. While Overholser was editor, the managing editor was Dave Westphal, Westphal had been one of the sports editors with whom I worked in my earlier writing...

How to start each day with a positive outlook : 1. Create a new file on your PC. 2. Name it "John Kerry." 3. Send it to the trash/recycling bin. 4. Empty the trash/recycling bin. 5. Your PC will ask you, "do you really want to get rid of John Kerry?" 6. Answer calmly, "yes," and press the mouse button firmly 7. Feel better.....

EAGLE, Colo. - Attorneys in Kobe Bryant's sexual assault case began questioning jury candidates behind closed doors Monday after the judge rejected a request to let the media listen in. The NBA star's right to a fair trial and the jury candidates' right to privacy outweigh "qualified" First Amendment rights of access, District Judge Terry Ruckriegle said after hearing from media attorneys. The private questioning would be "very limited," the judge said. Areas to be covered in private include the potential jurors' personal experience with sexual assault, any potential racial prejudice they harbor, whether pretrial publicity has prompted them to...

DENVER - With Kobe Bryant's sexual assault trial scheduled to begin in less than two weeks, speculation is mounting that prosecutors are looking for a way to dismiss the charge after a series of setbacks. The NBA star is due in court Monday in Eagle, his final court appearance before jury selection begins on Aug. 27. But events of the past two weeks suggest prosecutors might be seeking an avenue to dismiss the charge with minimal embarrassment, legal experts said. "We have too many things happening in this case that we just don't normally have," said Larry Pozner, former president...

The woman accusing Kobe Bryant of sexual assault filed a civil suit in federal court Tuesday, a move experts said was another blow to the prosecution in the criminal case against the Laker star. The 11-page suit, filed in Denver, requests a jury trial for unspecified compensatory and punitive damages. Analysts said the filing could threaten a criminal trial, because the defense probably would point out to jurors that Bryant's accuser is seeking money civilly. The suit said the 20-year-old woman has been subjected to "public scorn, hatred and ridicule" since the alleged rape June 30, 2003, at a Colorado...

"There is nothing more pessimistic than saying America can't do better. We can do better and we will. We're the optimists. For us, this is a country of the future. We're the can do people... I am proud that at my side will be a running mate whose life is the story of the American dream and who's worked every day to make that dream real for all Americans... And what can I say about Teresa? She has the strongest moral compass of anyone I know. She's down to earth, nurturing, courageous, wise and smart. She speaks her mind...

Second thoughts. After more than a year, Kobe Bryant's young accuser is now rethinking her decision to seek criminal prosecution of the NBA superstar, at least according to her lawyers, who appeared on Good Morning America Wednesday. Who can blame her, and what took her so long? From the outset, the evidence available for a criminal trial against Bryant has been underwhelming at best. His accuser isolated him by room assignment, snuck around to his room knowing he was more than a little interested in her, and then willingly participated in activities more appropriate to longtime lovers than to new...

EAGLE, Colo. — In an unusual move, Kobe Bryant's attorneys apparently are prepared to use a government expert to counter prosecutors on critical DNA evidence taken from the Laker star's accuser, according to a court transcript released Thursday. Prosecutors plan to assert that DNA from a man other than Bryant could have been transferred from the woman's underwear to her body, according to legal experts. If proved correct, this theory could undercut defense claims that the woman had sex with a man other than Bryant during the 15 hours between the alleged rape and her medical examination. However, according to...