Brinkley Footage Turned Over to Feds
We’ve learned that the FBI is examining footage from documentarian Barbara Kopple’s work-in-progress on the Hamptons. On September 9, Kopple was filming Christie Brinkley and her husband, Peter Cook, on a boat in the Long Island Sound, when Brinkley spotted two men on another boat floating close to the Millstone nuclear power plant in Waterford, Connecticut. Though Brinkley – who is well known for her anti-nuclear activism – tried to question the men (who appeared to be fishing) about their precarious location, they were too far away to hear. “She saw a boat very, very close to the plant’s water-intake valve,” Brinkley’s rep confirmed. “After what happened on September 11, she contacted the FBI.” The Feds asked for the tapes, which Kopple gave to Brinkley, who then handed them over to the FBI.
Britney Spears: Not That Innocent Indeed
Wanna know where Britney Spears gets her inspiration for stripping down to barely nothing during stage shows? One of our spies spotted the pop siren, clad in a midriff-baring top, skin-tight jeans, and a cowboy hat, watching the weekly strip show at the Granville nightclub in Los Angeles on a recent Saturday night with her boyfriend, ‘N Sync-er Justin Timberlake. The couple hit the club – where they were seated in the VIP booth surrounded by a dozen bodyguards – after partying with Leonardo DiCaprio, Tara Reid, and Michael Rapaport at a Jay-Z concert. Spears’s mouth dropped open in shock during a few of the gyrations by the pastie-clad strippers, but by the end, she was loving the show. Much to Timberlake’s delight, Spears imitated a few of the strippers’ moves on the dance floor later in the night, but he himself was on his best behavior. While most of the men in the room put $20 bills in the performers’ G-strings, he spent the evening playing with Britney’s hair.
Jackson Family’s Private Performance
Michael Jackson created a stir recently when he went to Harry Winston’s Beverly Hills store with children Paris and Prince to commission two necklaces made of red rubies, white diamonds, and blue sapphires. While there, Jacko went into the shop’s mirrored bathroom with the two kids – at which point, according to a source, “everyone heard all this singing and jumping, thumping, and banging.” After the fifteen-minute ruckus, the trio emerged and Jackson explained, “We couldn’t resist, we were dancing and singing … I felt like Fred Astaire!” A bemused store manager later told disappointed staffers that the impromptu gig wasn’t caught on the video-surveillance system: “That’s the only room in the building that doesn’t have a hidden camera.”
Jay-Z Adds to His Rap Sheet
Jay-Z was sentenced to three years’ probation for misdemeanor assault last week after he admitted stabbing a man in 1999, and it looks like he may soon be back in court – although this time it’s much less serious. Demme Ulloa, the singer who recorded the melody “H to the izzo / V to the izzay” for the rapper’s hit “Izzo (H.O.V.A.),” claims she hasn’t been paid for her work, and that she didn’t even know she was featured on the track until she heard the song on the radio. “One of the producers said to her, ‘If we put it on the record, you’ll get paid,’ but that never happened,” Ulloa’s lawyer, Wallace Collins, tells us. If a settlement isn’t reached by October 26, Collins plans to file a lawsuit in federal court on that day. Jonathan Lieberman, a lawyer for Jay-Z’s label, Roc-A-Fella, says, “I’m confident that it will be worked out.”
Chyna’s Naked Ambitions
The World Wrestling Federation champ and Playboy cover girl formerly known as Chyna – she now goes by her birth name, Joanie Laurer – was so eager to strip for the magazine again that she took a pay cut. “They were nervous about not being able to use the name Chyna, but I told them that I would take a lot less money,” says Laurer, who reportedly pocketed $1 million for her debut in November 2000. That was Playboy’s best-selling issue of the past decade. She’s not saying how much less she got this time (the new spread comes out in December), but she reveals that the pics have a dominatrix theme: “I’m not the lacey-panty type. I had fun making all the men on the set bow down so I could whip them.”
ROBIN IN THE HOOD: Robin Williams made the most of his time while in New York City last week. The comedian shopped at Barneys on Tuesday and, just hours after visiting ground zero on Wednesday, he unexpectedly showed up at the Gotham Comedy Club. After asking producer and host Marion Grodin if he could try out some new material, he performed for about an hour. Yes, he even included a few jokes about the Taliban.
With Catherine Townsend and Aric Chen.