Angelina's Twins: We Told You When | Madonna’s PR Campaign Pays Off | Billy Preston: Will He Go Round in Circles?
Angelina's Twins: We Told You When
Angelina Jolie is in a Nice, France, hospital getting ready to give birth to twin girls.
In May, she said her due date was Aug. 19. Remember? Everyone believed her. Except us.
Looking at Angie at the Cannes Film Festival, we knew this was impossible. Human gestation is only nine months, we reasoned. If Angie were still preggers in August, she would have to be reclassified.
Indeed, it was clear that when she finished shooting "The Changeling" in late December she was already a couple of months pregnant. By the time the news leaked out in mid-January, she was three months with baby. When she debuted at the Indie Spirit Awards on Feb. 23, Angie was clearly four months gone.
I said in a column from Cannes that I called the due date for late June. So give or take a week, here we are.
Did Angie and Brad Pitt lie about Aug. 19? Oh, yes. Why did they lie? Well, obviously to cool off the maddening paparazzi. It was a great idea. That anyone believed it is what gets me. You couldn’t look at this woman in Cannes and not know what was about to happen.
Of course, now the fun begins: After the babies are born, I am told that People and OK! magazines are in a death match to buy the rights to the pictures. People has spent a lot of money on baby Shiloh and is ready to do it again. The OK! crew reasons that they’re more international and can lay off the price — somewhere between $8 million and $10 million — on their various editions.
It’s more than likely Angie and Brad will put the money into their Jolie-Pitt Foundation so it can be donated to needy charities and groups around the world.
But in the meantime, isn’t it nice that we guessed the date? We also told you, via Angie, that the forthcoming babies are not exactly a matched set, but fraternal. They’re still going to give Angie and Brad a run for their money. Let’s hope they’ve found a good baby nurse or two, and a couple of nannies. They’re going to need them.
Madonna's PR Campaign Pays Off
Sorry, folks — I was out of pocket for a few hours on Monday. In that time, many gossip minds went nuts.
Madonna, dear friends, is not having an affair with New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez. I know this is disappointing, but here’s the real story.
The singer and the ballplayer — who could be the new Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe but aren’t — are each managed by Guy Oseary.
In every picture offered by US Weekly and the New York Post as evidence of this wild affair, there is only one man featured: Guy Oseary. He’s not invisible, so I have to think that the tabloids simply don’t identify him because it would ruin this fantasy.
And, no disrespect to Madonna, but why in the world would Rodriguez, who’s 32 and could cheat with any number of nymphets if he so chose, be interested in an almost 50-year-old? And does anyone really think such an affair would be conducted in Madonna’s apartment while three children are there? Are people really this gullible?
The answer is: yes.
Indeed, last week there was much discussion in this column and other places about Madonna’s concert ticket sales being slower than expected. Also, her album sales have been disappointing. Is it a coincidence that suddenly Oseary’s two clients have turned up in the tabloids as an item? Uh, no.
Similarly, it was more than amusing to see an item about comic Sandra Bernhard, suggesting that she slagged Madonna over the weekend at a show in Toronto or that they’re no longer friends. People! It was just more publicity. It was only last Friday night that Bernhard attended a Kabbalah "service" in New York with Madonna. She’s in all the video footage and paparazzi pictures. She, too, isn’t invisible.
Finally, this idea that Madonna and Guy Ritchie are getting a divorce is preposterous. But it’s stirred up interest in them, without a doubt. And this is why: Not only does Madonna have a lot riding on her fall tour, but Ritchie has directed a feature film, called "RocknRolla," due from Warner Bros. on Oct. 31. After numerous flops, Guy needs a hit.
In other words: We are being subjected to a summer-long PR campaign surrounding this couple just to build interest in them. Enough, already! Oh, yeah, is it working? Well, now you know about the film and the tour. I guess it is. Brilliantly.
Billy Preston: Will He Go Round in Circles?
There’s a new scandal in the endless mess concerning the estate of "fifth Beatle" Billy Preston, who died just over two years ago.
John Roemer writes in the Daily (Los Angeles law) Journal that attorney Baruch C. Cohen, representing the William E. Preston Trust, demanded that U.S. bankruptcy Judge Theodor C. Albert of Santa Ana recuse himself or be disqualified from deciding the fate of Preston's legacy.
The reason, Roemer says, is that there’s an allegation of a serious conflict of interest. Cohen claims in his papers that Albert approved a Los Angeles law firm to represent the Chapter 7 trustee, even though the same law firm had defended Albert while he was still in private practice in a legal malpractice suit.
Whoops!
The firm is Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith.
The nasty situation surrounding Preston’s estate and bankruptcy has been riddled with judicial, shall we say, riddles from the beginning. But this latest episode, as explained in the Journal on Tuesday, takes the cake.
Albert may wind up in very hot water. According to the Journal, Cohen writes in his recusal motion that Albert really favored this law firm while never disclosing his relationship to it.
Roemer writes: "From March to October 2006, as Albert was still a Lewis Brisbois client in the malpractice suit, Cohen wrote, the judge awarded the firm $127,000 in fees and expenses in the bankruptcy matter."
The reason Albert had been represented by LBBS is even more interesting. He was sued for malpractice — this was before he was made a judge — in 2001. Albert had been the lawyer for a business called 14K Jewelry Mart Exchange Inc., which had filed for bankruptcy. The company then sued Albert, his firm and other defendants, claiming that Albert kept jewelry that was part of the estate. Albert claimed he hadn’t had a chance to return the jewelry and the claims were ultimately dismissed.
More to come…