Blind Items A-Plenty! Get Out Your Skank Detectors!

Let’s throw out the names and take off the gloves for an ambush of blind gossip items that will simultaneously terrorize and delight the masses. The resulting tawdry-palooza will encourage you to guess which used-up old icon did what horrible thing to some worse-off E-lister on the road to redemption and an unemployment check. If you recognize yourself in any of these queries, please see a doctor immediately.

So here goes nothing:

Which comic film star is known to be narcissistic, insecure, needy, and demanding (though what he really should be demanding is a dietitian and a trainer)? Which top designer is a bottom? Ditto which respected TV presence? Which family-values-loving Republican candidate (who lost) could never seem to remember the name of the babysitter he dropped his kids with so he could go on flag-waving missions—for three years in a row?

Which auteur obviously writes what she knows? (Her eyes were rolling like pinballs at a press event, where “coke” was every third word out of her mouth. She really buzzes.) Which reality star was in a jealous rage when a much bigger reality star got all the attention in the same store on Fashion’s Night Out? Which designer who went backstage with a superstar after a Broadway show was so loud and crass that no one could hear what the superstar was saying, which everyone was much more interested in than what the designer was squawking? Which rock wife is prone to dramatic utterances of “Don’t you know who I am?” when department-store workers don’t snap to the attention she’d like? Which other rock wife gets so excited when shopping that she strips down to practically nothing in full view of other customers, in order to try things on more quickly? (The result is a sort of horrified bemusement.)

Which documentarian is following a designer around with a camera, mainly so he can use the footage to force the designer back into rehab? Which plus-size stage actress is a lesbian who’s girlfriends with someone who was in Evita? Which TV hunk supposedly never met a casting director he didn’t lick, er, like? Which indie-style rocker pocketed an additional $15,000 for a tour, supposedly for the extra lighting and musicians he needed, though he ended up grinningly standing there with just a spotlight and no band at all? Which onetime heartthrob has managed to keep his sexuality a well-guarded secret for five decades? Which actress playing a controversial character is apparently not happy having to enact the role of someone she despises? Which acclaimed actress whom everyone’s wondering about is supposedly bumping it with the female producer of one of her big films?

Which kid who’d just been cast in a Broadway show managed to find her way to her future dressing room, which she cagily checked out with a tape measure? Which legend could have directed the proposed revival of Funny Girl, but was told, “Your Fanny Brice will be Sara Ramirez”? Which Broadway star infuriated her director after she begged him to bring in a former co-star as a consultant because he’s the one who basically coached her to glory last time around? (The star and director ended up not speaking to each other, and some feel the result shows.)

Which Oscar winner tried to take her kids backstage to meet the stars of a show they’d just seen, but was completely unrecognized by security, who told her she could just wait by the stage door like everyone else? (She huffed and replied, “Well, it’s just that I’m an actor, too” before actually announcing her name in hopes of gaining quicker entrée. Yes, she went there. Still, no dice.) Which movie star who was recently on Broadway is such a challenging diva that when an assistant of hers quit after 10 days, she got a call from another former assistant saying “Congratulations!”?

Which quirky TV actress privately tells people she thought the direction of Lincoln was terrible? Which designer for a luxury French brand allegedly gets intimate with that married (to a woman) hip-hop star? What pudgy daytime TV star routinely dodges her ex-stylist’s calls since she still owes him thousands of dollars? Which long-running actress that everyone assumes is blissfully married has actually bedded virtually every male co-star in creation, as her hubby simply bites his tongue and chalks it up to research? Which superstar’s other son is looking to sell a memoir? (Free answer: Cher offspring Elijah Blue. Can’t wait.) Which higher-up at a gay media outlet writes under a pseudonym for a certain website that used to attack that outlet so thoroughly it was banned from being viewed?

And now, let’s stop in the vintage gossip shop for some oldies-but-not-moldies: What bizarre icon once called a famous mail-order company to finish his last-minute Christmas shopping, and when the clerk quipped, “We’ll beam those right out,” he complained to a manager and had the clerk beamed right out of there? (I.e., he got the guy fired.) Which then-sitcom star and his Latino boyfriend got coked up and trashed their hotel room, leading to the cancellation of the play the sitcom star was appearing in? (Hint: Decades later, he died, still in the closet.)

Which actor, best known for a big ’80s sitcom, used to hire a dominatrix to lock him up for the weekend and routinely tinkle on him? Which other former sitcom star—a gal with a wacky, freewheeling sense of spirituality—used to breastfeed her pet possum while she got her hair colored, also making sure to have a wet nurse around to do the job when she was busy with something more important? Why was I born?

Read more Michael Musto at La Dolce Musto

[email protected]