Madonna Divorce ‘Shocker’!According to the London ‘Sun’ and the ‘Post,’ today’s the day the couple will confirm what everyone saw coming.
ByChris Rovzar
crazytown
Christie Brinkley’s Media ControlChristie Brinkley has filed a restraining order to prevent Peter Cook from showing their children his Barbara Walters interview tonight.
Tricia Walsh-Smith Takes On Kathie Lee GiffordThe bitter ex-wife of Shubert Organization president Philip Smith finds a new target — incorrectly accusing the ‘Today’ show host of plotting her death.
Oh, Jeez: A Stripper Who Says She Slept With A-Rod Takes Cynthia’s SideIn an effort to class things up a bit in the divorce proceedings between Alex and Cynthia Rodriguez, the Boston ‘Herald’ uncovered a woman (who used to uncover herself for a living) willing to speak out on A-Rod’s alleged adultery.
The Rodriguez Divorce PapersCynthia’s lawyers file for her divorce from A-Rod. The papers are short and sweet, but they promise big battles ahead.
in other news
C-Rod to A-Rod: Give Me a D-RodThe Yankee slugger’s wife decides that tales of his relationship with Madonna are the last straw and files for a divorce today in Miami.
New York’s Greatest Divorces: Your Handy GuideChristie Brinkley and Peter Cook’s divorce will be messy, sure — but they’ve got nothing on Donald, Ron, and Rudy. Let’s talk about legends, people.
Paula Zahn and Richard Cohen Argue About When Sex Stopped, StartedPaula Zahn and her husband, Richard Cohen, are duking it out in the tabloids again, and this time, at least, they’re keeping their kids out of it. Team Paula tells the Daily News that “she and Richard weren’t having sex for some time,” maybe even a year. But Team Richard hits back in the Post, alleging that the former CNN anchor was having her affair with Contigroup CEO Paul Fribourg for at least a year before the shtupping stopped. Fribourg and Cohen were friends and would frequently golf together or share family outings, say both papers, even after the trysts began. Though Fribourg has started proceedings for a (reportedly amicable) split from his wife, no divorce papers have been filed between Zahn and Cohen themselves. And they’ve been publicly sparring since April! They’re probably just psyched to be in the papers for something other than that godforsaken Pale Male debacle.
Zahn Pal: She Left for Sex [NYDN]
Paula’s Affair Shock [NYP]
Earlier: Paula Zahn and Richard Cohen Start Fighting Dirty
sex diaries
The Mid-Divorce MotherOnce a week, Daily Intel takes a peek at what your friends and neighbors are doing behind doors left slightly ajar. Today, the Mid-Divorce Mother: female, 50, Norwood (the Bronx), writer, straight, divorcing “after years of ambivalence.”
DAY ONE
6:00 p.m.: Dinner and drinks with four women, all over 50. They are all so intelligent, funny, evolved, and alive.
9:00 p.m.: Two of the women are a couple who met on an Internet matchmaking service four months ago. I wonder if I shortchanged myself in life by never truly exploring bisexual possibilities.
11:00 p.m.: Go to sleep on couch. Soon-to-be ex-husband of sixteen years sleeps in the bedroom, 15-year-old son in his room.
ByArianne Cohen
company town
Star Takes the Stand, Forgets Her Past
LAW
• Back before Star Jones married a beard and was thwarted by Barbara Walters, she had to prosecute guys named T-Black and A. [NYP]
• With New Jersey opening the door to “irreconcilable differences” in divorces, New York may now be the only state that forbids “no-fault” splits. [New Jersey Law Blog via New York Divorce Report]
• New York State’s chief judge says underpaid jurists are at a new “level of frustration and anger and despair” over their meager paychecks. [NYLJ]
the morning line
Free at Last, Free at Last
• What were we doing in the days before DNA testing? Well, apparently jailing busloads of innocent people, for one thing. The eighth — eighth! — New York State convict in thirteen months to be exonerated by DNA evidence was released yesterday after fifteen years in jail. [NYT]
• Both tabloids look at the State of the Union address through the eyes of Ceasar Borja Jr., the son of a WTC cop whom Hillary Clinton had flown to Washington. His father died of lung disease hours before Bush’s speech. [NYP, NYDN]
• It’s not exactly the Oscars, but a consortium of community activists got to nominate the city’s worst landlords last night. The runaway winner: Adam Mermelstein of TreeTop Development, who used fake inspectors with prop badges and invalid eviction papers to harass his tenants. [NYDN]
• Now this is a divorce case. Four children, $55 million in assets, $5 million in legal bills, and the heaviest dueling allegations in recent memory (kiddie porn and spousal rape versus drug addiction and mental disease). Welcome to Westport. [NYP]
• And you know you love the Mets a little too much when they have to take out a restraining order against you. An 18-year-old Piazza fan was barred from Shea for three years after faking a press pass to get closer to his idol. [amNY]
the morning line
Oh Mother
• So who’s to blame for yesterday’s sulfuric odor across Manhattan that today has tabloid headline writers gleefully trafficking in fart puns? The leading version is an emission from a swamp across the Hudson. New Jersey, we thought better of you. [NYP]
• A security guard employed at the Office of the State Comptroller in Albany is being charged with exposing himself to two 13-year-old girls this past Saturday — at the office. Kinda puts Hevesi’s indiscretions in perspective. [AP via amNY]
• A Bronx mother who had earlier claimed her baby was stolen at gunpoint on New Year’s Eve is now suspected of abandoning the 1-month-old in a Dumpster. The cops are frantically searching landfills. [WNBC]
• Meet Stavon Simpson, a slightly less evil mom. According to the D.A., she took the $186,000 life-insurance payout from the dead father of her child — bequeathed expressly to the daughter’s education — and decided it would be better spent on a Land Rover and things like the cable bill. Because the most important lesson is confidence. [NYDN]
• And, you still can’t get gay-married in New York, but you can get gay-divorced. One half of a feuding ex-couple cited the union’s illegality to get out of a separation agreement; in a Solomon-esque decision, a city judge has ruled that the contract stands even if the marriage itself doesn’t. [NYT]
numbers game
It’s Giuliani Time!America’s Mayor — or New York’s former mayor, at least — has set up an exploratory committee for a presidential run, and, boy, are the tabs excited. We’ll happily grant that Rudy Giuliani’s 9/11 bona fides aren’t nothing, but we also wonder if his quest to become the standard-bearer of the family-values party might in fact be an uphill battle. Some numbers to consider …
Number of Republican presidential nominees since 1980: 4
Number who performed admirably on September 11 and 12, 2001, including the 2000 and 2004 nominee: 0
Number who were from the Northeast (remembering the George H.W. Bush was considered a Texas resident when he became president): 0
Number who were Roman Catholics: 0
Number who were pro-choice: 0
Number who were pro–gay rights: 0
Number who were divorced: 2
Number who were twice divorced: 0
Number who informed his wife of their impending divorce via press conference: 0
Number who moved in with his gay close friend and his gay close friend’s partner after being thrown out of his mayoral residence by wife, whom he had informed via press conference he would be divorcing her: 0
CORRECTION, Nov. 17: We are bad at counting, and this item originally claimed five GOP presidential nominees since 1980. And we have forgotten most of what we knew about Bob Dole, including that he was divorced; this item originally cited only one divorced nominee.
