Celebrity Gossip

They’re still talkin’ trash in Hollywood about what caused the Angelina Jolie-Billy Bob Thornton marriage mess. “Everybody who’s anybody,” it seems, has their own opinion.

Depending upon who’s talkin’ and what trendy restaurant you’re dining at, there are lots of juicy rumors floating around in the smog. Did Jolie really catch Thornton in the sack with another woman? Did she “adopt” her child illegally while paying off a black market contact? Was Billy Bob really jealous over the quality time she spent with the new child? Did he decide to split to avoid legal ramifications? Was the whole deal a hoax?

Not to mention, of course, the rumors that Angelina is asking BB to give back the vials of blood he took from her early-on in their marriage. Now that she wants her blood back, Thornton has admitted that he has it locked away for “safe-keeping,” whatever that means. One source in Hollywood sez as long as Thornton has Jolie’s blood, he believes he has her heart and soul.
For the price of a drink, somebody will give you a few choice quotes.

Jon Voight said on “Access Hollywood” that his daughter needed to get help. The actor revealed that she has ”mental problems,” that he knew her marriage to Billy Bob was doomed, and that he hasn't seen his year-old grandson, Maddox.
Voight went public about his estrangement from his daughter, pleading with her fans and handlers to see that she gets help, now that she's split with her husband.

He blamed himself for failure to act on her behalf, and also begged his daughter to let him see his grandchild, the baby she and Thornton adopted just months before she filed for divorce.

Voight said his daughter, ”began showing signs of mental illness” as an infant. (He divorced Jolie's mother before their daughter was a year old but says he remained a presence in her life.) Voight also said that he was brokenhearted, because he’d been trying to reach his daughter and get her help.

“I have failed and I’m sorry,” he observed. “I haven't come forward and addressed the serious mental problems she has spoken about so candidly to the press over the years, but I've tried behind the scenes in every way.”

Voight said he had confronted his daughter a number of times and she told him, “You can't help me! You can't help my pain!”

Voight and Jolie had a brief reconciliation when they worked together on “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider,” but it didn't last. He said he tried to greet her recently at a Hollywood party, but her manager blocked him and said, “She doesn't want to see you.” (The manager told the story differently, however. He said that he interceded because Voight “aggressively, physically grabbed her against her will”).

Thornton, Voight’s son-in-law of two years, has problems too, according to the actor. “I never had the feeling that they were going to make it because of both of their serious problems,” he noted, “and they've both been very public about them, so I never really held out any hope.”

When Jolie was contacted by the media and told about her father’s comments, she responded: “I don't want to make public the reasons for my bad relationship with my father. I will only say that, like every child, (brother) Jamie and I would have loved to have had a warm and loving relationship with our dad. After all these years, I have determined that it is not healthy for me to be around my father, especially now that I am responsible for my own child.”
According to “Tomb Raider” executive Lawrence Gordon, he was unaware of any problems Angelina had that would possibly jeopardize the big-budget franchise. “If there was a problem,” he said, “ I would know it.''

Robert Blake's lawyer has released a taped phone conversation in which Christian Brando, (Marlon’s son), warns Bonny Lee Bakley that one of the men she’d conned might try to kill her. Sources say the lawyer’s actions was an effort to show that a number of other people besides Robert Blake had a motive to kill Bonny Lee Bakley,

One such man is Brando, himself, though he, reportedly, denies it on tape. However, attorney Harland Braun has suggested that Brando, who spent five years in prison on voluntary manslaughter charges for shooting his half-sister’s boyfriend, was one of the men who Bakley thought might have fathered her daughter, Rose. (She married Blake in late 2000 only after a paternity test proved that the “Baretta” star to be the child's father).

In May 2001, Bakley was shot in her car after dining with Blake, a crime for which Blake was arrested 11 months later. He remains jailed without bail. (His handyman, Earle Caldwell, is charged with being a co-conspirator).

Brando has not responded to Braun's characterization of him, but authorities deny Braun's charge that police didn't adequately investigate Brando and say that neither Brando nor anyone else besides Blake and Caldwell is a suspect.
Meanwhile, on an ABC-TV special, “Contact: Talking to the Dead,” a medium named George Anderson, claimed he contacted the spirit of Bonny Lee Bakley. Listen up, now: Communicating through Anderson, Bonny Lee says: “I don’t want to speak of the circumstances of my death…you already know what happened.” In the unedited footage of the session, production sources claim Bonny Lee’s “spirit” directly accused “Baretta” star Robert Blake of being her murderer.

People have been talking hot and heavy lately on both coasts about pop star Britney Spears (have they ever stopped?) since she was caught smoking and giving photographers the finger. Then, she later added insult to in jury by abruptly walking off stage after only a few songs during her concert in Mexico.
Music fans, as well as industry execs, are now wondering if maybe the good-girl teen idol has gone bad. There’s much discussion, pro and con.

Spears’ recent antics have left some wondering whether the 20-year-old pop icon is trying to exchange her wholesome image for a more devilish persona. But some fans and Britney experts refute that theory. They contend Spears’ outbursts are nothing more than the performer being a girl her age.

No matter how opinionated they have been, most followers, including the Web master of one Spears’ fan sites, realize she's had a rigorous schedule and rocky personal life in the last month or so.

When Britney was questioned about her actions, she said there's no motive behind the incidents, and offered an explanation for at least a few of the bad-girl things that she's done.

“I’m human too,” she said at a news conference. “I get mad like everyone else.” She said the “shooting the finger” incident was not aimed at her fans -- who were outraged -- but at the swarming paparazzi, who bugged her. Spears contended the concert was cut short because of dangerous lightning and thunderstorms.

While fans in Mexico were disappointed and disgruntled – some were unable to get their money back – the general feeling in America is that Britney’s behavior will not cause her die-hard faithful to desert her. Most realize it’s simply a part of the growing up process, and who ever said that entertainers ever acted like other people, anyway?

Julia Roberts claims she was “born to love” and be the wife of her new hubby, cameraman Danny Moder. When questioned by the media about her quickie marriage to Moder, she remarked: “He is formidable. He is a man among men, unselfish and all-encompassing. He stands by the choices he made. He will never blame it on somebody else, and I have never seen anybody else do that.”

One choice he didn't stand by, however, was his five-year marriage to makeup artist Vera Steimberg, whom he divorced just a month before he and Roberts tied the knot. The cameraman and Roberts met on the set of “The Mexican” and were romantically linked last year shortly after the breakup of Roberts’ four-year relationship with Benjamin Bratt.

When backed into a corner, Roberts admitted that Moder's marital status made their relationship “terribly complicated,” but said that everything had now worked out for the best, even for Bratt. (The actor rebounded from his affair with Roberts by marrying his “Pinero” costar Talisa Soto. They're now expecting a child. Plus, he doesn't have to deal with the constant press attention of being Julia Roberts’ “significant other,” an annoyance he likened to buzzing mosquitoes in a recent interview).

As for when she and Moder plan to emulate Bratt and Soto by starting their own family, Roberts commented candidly, ''In due course.''

Meanwhile, Julia, baby, has been caught in a bizarre wedding lie. The actress blatantly told reporters she and her hubby had gone to London, Paris and Greece for their honeymoon. The truth is, Julia and Danny never left the U.S. (Sources contend Julia’s lie was meant to make Moder’s ex-wife jealous).
Following their weeklong wedding bash in Taos, New Mexico, the couple took a 15-hour, 900-mile trip back to LA-land in her Toyota Land Cruiser. After Julia finished off the press junket for her film, “Full Frontal,” and cameraman Danny wrapped up shooting a Burger King commercial, they quietly slipped away to Santa Barbara for their REAL honeymoon – a romantic two-night stay in a cozy cottage at the San Ysidro Ranch.

Naturally, tickets to Bruce Springsteen's tour were pretty hot stuff. They were hard to get, but not too expensive at $77 — compared to recent Paul McCartney and Prince shows. But not everyone, it seems, wanted to pay for them. Take, for example, former Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper. Sources close to them (and to Springsteen) sayTipper tried to get free tickets to the Springsteen show for the entire Gore staff. That didn't work, and she was then told that even paid admission would be hard to come by.

According to one source, they wound up being offered four tickets, but when they were asked to pay $75 apiece, they turned up their noses and told promoters to forget it.

A Gore spokesman disputed the report as inaccurate, and denied Mrs. Gore tried to score free tickets. By late afternoon, however, after the story was first reported, the ex-second lady herself called the media and left a message saying she was indeed “treating friends” to the concert, adding she “was planning to pay for the tickets, and always have been.”

Gosh, Brad Pitt just spent $750,000 so wife Jennifer Aniston could take a sexy bubble bath in a one-of-a-kind tub – that’s big enough for two. Brad collaborated with a designer and drew up plans for a masterpiece to be carved out of slate. Then, he imported a massive hunk of stone from Italy and hired an artist to sculpt the tub. (Reportedly, the guy spent six months on the work of art, which includes a built-in waterfall).

They say one of the most popular star-studded places in Hollywood is the chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in LA. Matthew Perry, Robert Downey, Jr. and Naomi Campbell, whom, they say, have all been clean and sober for over 30 days, were at a recent meeting of the group.

The word’s out that Barbra Streisand and hubby James Brolin spent $500,000 for a romantic “second honeymoon” sailing off the coast of Italy on a luxury yacht.

There’s more trouble off the set of trash-talkin’ king Jerry Springer. Seems that the son of a former guest sued Springer, because his mother was killed by her ex-husband after the couple appeared on the show. We’ll keep ya posted – maybe.

O.J. Simpson’s girlfriend, Christine Prody, has been accused of murdering her cat. Last year, Prody left the cat alone in her Miami home for a month without food and water. She faces up to a year in jail and a $5,000 fine.

I betcha that “Sex and the City” star Kristen Davis wishes she’d vetoed that eye-popping scene where she flashed one breast at a sailor in a nightclub on the season premiere. Some dude, it seems, did a video of Kristen’s perky bosom and flashed it onto the Internet. And, now, it’s making the rounds on the street as a sexy poster.

People who live in a small village in Romania have been banned from drinking in public – thanks to Nicole Kidman. When she was filming “Cold Mountain” in far-off Potigrafu, the mayor laid down the law to all the towns people to lay off the booze while Kidman and the film crew were on location.

Tongues are wagging in tinseltown that Ben Affleck and J.Lo are planning a wedding for next spring, after her divorce from Cris Judd is finalized in January.

That was Tobey Maguire (otherwise known as Spider-man) spotted riding on a fire truck near Melrose Ave. The actor sez that he always wanted to be a fireman when he was growing up, and recently became pals with some local firefighters. Now, they regularly drive him around town.

Rumor has it that Jennifer Aniston is trying to get pregnant, and ain’t too thrilled that husband Brad Pitt has chosen a film project 10,000 miles away from home.