Well, I asked Nikki to ‘say it ain’t so‘ regarding the rumors about her divorce settlement, and sure enough, she said it ain’t so! I have her in the palm of my hand.

But seriously, folks, in a rare public statement, Nikki Finke sent the following email to FishbowlLA:

Just to demonstrate how much untrue information is spread out there, I would like to correct the record about the personal information printed about me on Gawker.com and Mediabistro’s FishbowlLA. Yes, I was once involved in a 14-year relationship with Jeffrey Greenberg, son of M.R. Greenberg, that included marriage. But there was no “generous divorce settlement” because I never sought one. I only asked for, and received, $35,500 (easily confirmable with the District Court of Harris County, Texas). Why that figure? Because I made it clear I wished to pay back my parents for the cost of the wedding at The Pierre. I took no other money, property, equities, etc.. Needless to say, my divorce lawyer made me sign a piece of paper promising I wouldn’t sue him for malpractice. So please don’t portray me as a money-grubbing divorcee.

So, remember. Nikki Finke doesn’t not write for magazines because she’s rich. She doesn’t write for magazines because she thinks magazine editors are stupid.

Defamer links to a rather remarkable Spiegel interview with Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg, wherein 1) the reporter actually confronts Cruise about Scientology and 2) Spielberg clumsily tries to back up his star. Long excerpt after the jump, but you should really read the whole article.

Will Cruise’s sister/publicist Lee Anne Mapother ever permit another German press interview? Doubt it.

Read more

Who knew? From the LA Independent:

While growing up in her native Canada, Good Day L.A. co-hostess Jillian Barberie was an aficionado of all things Hollywood.

“I love the history of the city,” she says. “I used to read old magazines and books on Hollywood – Rita Hayworth, Erroll Flynn, Betty Grable.”
[...]
“It’s so cool, the history.”

Watch out, Kevin Starr!

Turns out I’m not the only media blog running a Nikki-Finke-related contest. (I’m still accepting entries, by the way. Keep them coming!) The results of Gawker’s Nikki Finke Awful PR Award contest are in, and it’s a pretty impressive compendium of bad publicist behavior.

Also, the gawksters report receiving a missive from a respondent claiming that the real reason Finke doesn’t do magazine work is because she doesn’t need the money due to a hefty divorce settlement. Say it ain’t so, Nikki! I thought you were proud of being ‘downwardly mobile.’

(UPDATE: Here.)

It’s an archetypal Hollywood story. A wide-eyed innocent shows up in town with no contacts and nothing to her name. Years later, after various reversals and a few lucky breaks, she becomes a sought-after commodity.

In keeping with the cultural climate, today’s Column One in the LAT applies this storytelling paradigm not to the next big starlet, but to a house– a modest abode which figuratively gets off the bus from Kansas in 1927 and finds herself on the mean streets of West Hollywood. To make ends meet, she is forced to sell her body for a paltry $6200. Decades later, after consorting with a C-list actor (Michael Pare, star of ‘Eddie And The Cruisers’) and a noted TV movie producer (Mark Wolper)– and undergoing a massive boob job (okay, a contractor put in a spa)– this month she was sold for $1.1 million.

Congratulations, 9019 Dorrington Avenue. Don’t forget the little people.

Tough call this time around. The ‘Getting Personal’ column in the LA Times Thursday Calendar section is about lusting after guys who know how to use a computer. ($ required for access, but not for long, I hear, as the divisive Calendarlive Wall may be torn down within a few weeks.) Meanwhile, the Jewish Journal looks at Icebreakers, two women who hire themselves out to hang out with guys in bars and help them meet women.

Granted, this is hardly a scoop, as the LAT Calendar section took an lengthy look at Icebreakers in its Valentine’s Day special issue. But I’m giving the nod to the Jewish Journal this week anyway, if only for this cliche-ridden paragraph:

Suddenly these two action females, ravaging the basic hunter-gatherer foundation of our existence, set out. But putting theory into practice can suddenly feel even more awkward than where one’s usual self-loathing and loneliness usually leads. (I’m thinking of the shy computerized nice Jewish boy staring at screens all day. Not me.) Remember when cousin Moishe or Manny would just introduce you to someone from the neighborhood? Well, old school is out.

LA.COMfidential notices that both Lohan and Hilton are smoking out moles in their entourages via a technique which will be familiar to lovers of espionage fiction:

Is it just us or is Lindsay Lohan morphing into Paris Hilton? Not only has she lightened her hair and dieted off her curvy figure, but Lindsay is talking a lot like Paris as well. According to Page Six, Lindsay told Teen Vogue this month:

I recently ended a close friendship because of stuff that was getting out. Sometimes, I’ll tell people in my life something completely out of this world-that could never be true-and then I’ll see it in the tabloids. That’s how you find out who you can trust.

In February, Paris said almost the same thing to Jane magazine:

I test out friends sometimes…I’ll say something that’s totally not true, ’cause I think they’re calling Page Six every night. I’ll say something like ‘I was in Paris last week.’ And if that story appears, I’ll just freeze them out. I’ll never call them. I’ll never talk to them.

In the inaugural installment of this new weekly FishbowlLA feature, I offer you the cover story on Cher in gay-interest biweekly In Los Angeles. (Weird that literally the first time in my life I pick up a gay-oriented magazine, the cover story is on Cher. Coincidence, or are all the cover stories in the gay press on Cher?)

Highlight of the piece is the last sentence:

For a crash course in what it really takes to make it in the world, however, Cher, we’ve got you, babe.

Another look at the Beverly Hills Courier, the newspaper which makes Beverly Hills 213 look like The Economist. Columnist Rabbi Jacob Pressman takes a look at those wacky things called newspaper ads. I was brought up not to make fun of rabbis, so I’m just going to excerpt:

So I spread out some pages of the Times on our den floor, and was struck by something. No, it wasn’t by my fastidious wife. It was by pages B8 and B9, with a special heading: “Business and Professional Service Directory.”

“Ah,” I thought, “this inform me which trades need to advertise and what it is people want”

Here are some of the ads I found. . Accounting, only two small ads.

Advertising, only one small ad. Air Quality , only one small ad. (You would think breathing good air is important.) Antiques: four ads. (Obviously very important.) Air Conditioning, three ads. Attorneys, 37, mostly very large!

Wow!

The end of the column could really come straight from The Onion:

My friends, nothing compares with the pages and pages of advertisements one can find in the Sunday Times. They cover more space than the Manhattan “Gates,” and are far more educational…

Above all they are the front line of the defenses of our liberty. It is called: FREEDOM OF THE PRESS.

And for the latest really important information, read my column in The Courier!

Note: According to his bio at the website of Temple Beth Am, where he is Rabbi emeritus, Pressman was named ‘Funniest Rabbi in Los Angeles’ in 1995.

Is it my imagination or did the LA Weekly just publish a compelling special issue? Highlights of the look at the apartment building landscape of Los Angeles include a profiles of: a celebrity hanger-on and his model-centric demi-monde, a building inhabited by artsy demi-monde types, another building, uh formerly inhabited by artsy demi-monde types, and a straight guy living in the gay West Hollywood demi-monde. In short, lots and lots of demi-mondes. Oh, and Nikki Finke pitches in with a guide to apartments once inhabited by famous Old Hollywood types.

Speaking of darling Nikki, the current winning entry to the FishbowlLA Draw Nikki Finke Contest is pictured above. Congratulations to John Doe #1. Keep the entries coming.