'Hairspray' Actress Nikki Blonsky Accused of Using Fake Boyfriends to Help Career

Nikki Blonsky (Reuters)

"Hairspray" star Nikki Blonsky was accused of cooking up a phony love life in a bid to kick-start her foundering movie career, the New York Post reported Monday.

Talent manager Blake Woodruff of Prestige Management Group claimed Blonsky used him and another man as bogus boyfriends to get press coverage and turn what he says were business meetings into gossip items.

Curvaceous Blonsky became a sensation when she was cast as the lead in the 2007 version of "Hairspray" opposite Zac Efron and John Travolta. The film made more than $202 million at the box office. Next, she starred in the now-canceled ABC Family show "Huge." But then Blonsky's career went flat.

"She's always trying to create a scene to promote herself," Woodruff -- not to be confused with the teen actor of the same name -- told the Post. "She would use me as her boyfriend and then contact her publicist to make sure our dates were known."

Woodruff claimed Blonsky dragged him onto the red carpet at the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network awards and asked him to identify himself as her boyfriend. "She would brag that, 'Nikki Blonsky and her new boy will be in Star magazine'," he said.

He also claimed he was not Blonsky's only faux boy toy. A photo went out to media outlets in June from a restaurant publicist showing Blonsky posing and kissing aspiring actor Tommy Potoeski.

Blonsky's rep confirmed the relationship in June, and sources said that Potoeski identified himself at the restaurant as "Blonsky's boyfriend."

But Blonsky's rep told the Post, "Per her Twitter, she is openly and happily single."

The rep said Woodruff's accusation was "100 percent not true. I have never actively pitched a story with her regarding any boyfriends."