Eleven wonderful reasons why we love
the mother tabloid.
-------
Steve
Coz can bray all he wants about his new respectable,
news-breaking National Enquirer, but, frankly, we love the mother tabloid
because it has really funny pictures, like these precious moments below
— excerpted from Talk Miramax's The National Enquirer: Thirty Years
of Unforgettable Images. (Click here
to buy it.)
—Albert
Lee
Hillary Clinton, 1998.
A cold microphone battery pack wasn’t the only thing making the First Lady
go cross-eyed as a studio technician wired her before an appearance on CNN’s
Late Edition. After Paula Jones and Gennifer Flowers had already smeared
the Clintons’ political agenda, Bill’s internal affair with intern
Monica Lewinsky thoroughly humiliated Hillary. After years of marital discord,
her philandering chief executive then had the nerve to allegedly campaign for
one more outgoing pardon: a post-presidency divorce, which Hillary quickly vetoed.
"You’ve got an awful lot to make up to Chelsea and me, and you’ll
spend the rest of your life doing it," she told him, according to an insider.
Gary Hart and Donna Rice, 1987. In what The New York
Times called one of the major political exclusives of the year, Gary Hart
and Donna Rice are caught "monkeying" around in Bimini, Florida. "He
said he would divorce his wife after he got to the White House, and marry me,"
Donna told a friend. "It sounds beyond belief that a girl like me could
be the First Lady, but this is America and dreams come true!" Instead,
after the story broke, a disgraced Hart relinquished his White House bid, returned
to Denver with his wife, and refused to take Donna's calls.
Madonna, 2000. Madonna has built a $600-million empire
by continually reinventing herself for public consumption, but her greatest
transformation — into a mother — has been played out largely in private.
After bearing her first child, Lourdes, with personal trainer Carlos Leon, Madonna
hung out in London, adopted an English accent, and tapped Brit director Guy
Ritchie to father number two, Rocco, shown here hiding in Madonna's very pregnant
belly. After he was born, Madonna transformed herself once again: into a wife,
when she made the whole thing official by marrying Ritchie.
Brooke Shields, 1985. Lady Luck was not with Brooke Shields
this night. While spinning a roulette wheel at a Washington, D.C., charity bash,
tragedy struck: She broke a nail. The former child model and always-game actress
quickly recovered, however, before moving on to the blackjack table.
Michael Jackson, 1986. He dressed his pet chimp Bubbles
to look just like himself and wanted to buy the bones of the Elephant Man, but
it was this photo that convinced the world that the 28-year-old performer was
truly one mad hatter. "I believe if I treat my body properly, I'll live
to be at least 150," explained the Peter Pan of pop, announcing plans to
buy, and sleep in, a hyperbaric oxygen chamber used for burn patients. Jackson
supplied Polaroids of himself napping in the chamber to the Enquirer through
his then-manager Frank DiLeo. "Michael specifically insisted that the word
'bizarre' be used in the story to identify him," DiLeo recalled. Bizarre
didn't quite stick, but "Wacko Jacko" turned out to be a keeper.
Brooke Astor, 1999. Don't let the dolphin fool you: The
nearly 100-year-old freewheeling socialite, a descendant of one of the signers
of the Declaration of Independence, has never had to depend on anyone for anything.
Astor, who made the acquaintance of the sea creature at the Manatee Park resort
while on vacation in the Dominican Republic, is heir to one of America's oldest
fortunes. Sill, except in giving it away — she is one of New York City's
greatest philanthropists — dollars don't interest the doyenne of dinner
parties. "I love life and I love people," says Astor, who lives alone
in Manhattan with two miniature dachshunds and a French maid, and attends functions
every evening. "But in my day, people used to talk more about interesting
things, about politics and books. Now all people do is talk about money."
Jodie Foster, 1979. Straddling the cusp between innocent
maiden and come-hither siren, the then-17-year-old actress would find herself
wrapped up in the middle of the mother of all romantic delusions. The precocious,
academically gifted Foster, whose career began half-naked in a famous Coppertone
commercial, won widespread critical acclaim for her portrayal of an adolescent
prostitute in Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver. One man, though, overappreciated
her performance: 25-year-old loner John Hinckley Jr., who watched the film at
least 15 times, shot then-president Ronald Reagan in his version of "the
greatest love offering in the history of the world." A student at Yale
at the time, Foster has rarely posed as provocatively since.
Darva Conger, 1998. "Don't say I took it all off,
I didn't," she said when confronted with this charming Kodak moment, where
a 22-year-old Conger lined up 100 men for a benefit striptease at a U.S. Air
Base in South Korea. "It was part of a fundraiser," she insisted.
So was her more demure performance as the blushing bride who said "I do"
to Rick Rockwell on Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire? — then
said "I won't" on the honeymoon. Their unconsummated union reached
its terminus in a Las Vegas courtroom, and the publicity cost the California
ER nurse her job. Conger, however, picked up where she left off in South Korea
and threw herself a fundraiser by posing nude for Playboy in August 2000.
Gary Coleman, 1998. Twelve years after starring on Diff'rent
Strokes, the still tiny 30-year-old was discovered (Despite the nametag
that read WAYNE) working on the set of the film The Other Sister as a
lowly security guard. "When I first saw Gary come on the set dressed in
a security uniform, I thought he had to be appearing in the movie," reported
a witness. Though Coleman, once the highest-paid child actor on TV, was reduced
to a puny $7-to-$8-per-hour gig, he wasn't embarrassed. "I've done this
before," he said. "At least it pays the bills." The humiliation
would come later: While shopping for a bulletproof vest, the 95-pound Coleman
allegedly punched a 170-pound female bus driver. Coleman told his arresting
officer the woman had complained about the autograph he'd given her and accused
him of being a failed actor.
Prince Albert, 1999. The only son of Prince Rainer and
the late Princess Grace Kelly, the never-been-married heir to the throne of
Monaco has acquired a reputation as the randiest of the royals, a confirmed
bachelor who is as likely to be seen judging an Elite model contest in Paris
as frolicking on the beaches of the Caribbean with a bevy of beautiful women.
Taking full advantage of his lush perch on the ever-glamorous French Riviera,
Prince Albert has earned the local nickname "The Prince of Partying."
But living the life of a carefree playboy prince isn't as effortless as it looks
— keeping absolutely all of the royal parts in good working order must
be accomplished by any means necessary, as this shot of Albert in a Monaco gym
reveals.
Charlie Sheen, 1996. For the star of Platoon, the
'90s were a battlefield: rehabs, relapses, and a preferred-customer listing
in Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss's little black book. Not to mention assault
charges, in this case for allegedly beating up his date, Brittany Ashland. Released
on $20,000 bail, Sheen — born Carlos Irwin Estevez — attempts to tag
out a paparazzo waiting outside the police station. "The moment he saw
me he flew into a total rage and began chasing me like a madman," said
the photographer, who made a 100-yard dash to nearby deputies. "Charlie
Sheen has completely lost his mind," an insider said. "He has some
dark demons to deal with." Fortunately, he has: The clean-and-sober Sheen
is now chasing a new career as the star of Spin City.
Clinton: Courtesy AP/Wide World Photos; Hart, Jackson: Courtesy
the National Enquirer; Foster: Courtesy Lari/Corbis Sygma; Madonna, Sheen:
Courtesy Fame Pictures; Coleman: Courtesy Stewart Cook; Prince Albert: Courtesy
The Express Syndication; Astor: Courtesy Leshay/PHOTOlink; Shields: Courtesy
Rochelle Law.
