SHOOTING HER MOUTH OFF: Maryland’s First Lady was only joking when she said she would like to shoot pop star Britney Spears for exaggerating the importance of sex to young girls, but Tuesday it was no longer a laughing matter.
Kendel Ehrlich, wife of the state’s Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich, had been taking the entertainment industry to task last week when she laughingly told the audience, “Really, if I had an opportunity to shoot Britney Spears, I think I would.”
Oh, and the remarks came at a conference for domestic violence prevention.
A local radio station discovered Ehrlich’s remark while reviewing a tape of the conference and ran a news story about it Monday. By Tuesday, the First Lady’s office was forced to issue a statement.
“As a working mother raising a 4-year-old son, the First Lady has concerns about the negative influences that the entertainment industry can have on young children and teenagers,” Ehrlich spokeswoman Meghann Siwinski said. “During a public appearance, she inadvertently used a figure of speech to express those concerns.”
SLINGING MUD: P. Diddy says he’s “hurt” by allegations in a lawsuit against him that he is connected to the 1996 murder of Tupac Shakur.
Kirk Burrowes, Diddy’s former friend and business partner, alleges in a $25 million lawsuit against Combs that the rap mogul was linked to the death of one of Suge Knight’s bodyguards, and that this links him to Tupac’s subsequent murder in Las Vegas. Burrowes, former president of Bad Boy Entertainment, filed the lawsuit this summer, alleging P. Diddy cheated him out of $25 million and threatened him with a baseball bat.
“It’s the newest con game in town,” Diddy told the New York Post, “shake down and blackmail someone with a high profile.
“If I was involved in something like this, I would be somewhere else behind bars. A lie like this turns your whole life upside down. And it hurts.”
STORK REPORT: Oddball movie couple Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton are celebrating the birth of a baby boy, reports E! Online.
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The unnamed child was born Saturday in a London hospital and is the first baby for the actress and her film-director partner, Burton. Joking about the unconventional living arrangement, Bonham Carter said: “I don’t know if we’ll marry. I find it romantic bearing his illegitimate child and living next door.”
“Mall Rats” star Jason Lee and his actress-fiance Beth Riesgraf are new parents, too, according to a posting on director Kevin Smith’s Web site.
And finally, “Hercules” actor Kevin Sorbo is preparing to become a daddy for the second time.
“My wife, Sam, is four months pregnant,” he tells TV Guide Online. “We have a 2-year-old boy [Braedon Cooper], and we have another one on the way. We don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl yet. We’ll find out in about a week.”
VIBIN’: Pharrell Williams isn’t “Frontin’ ” about what a good year he’s had.
So good, in fact, that he leads the field with five nominations for the inaugural Vibe Awards.
The hip-hop mag’s gala is set to take place Nov. 20 in Santa Monica, Calif., with Queen Latifah hosting. It’ll be broadcast on UPN as a two-hour special the next night.
Beyonce Knowles and 50 Cent received four nominations each.
STYLE BY BEYONCE: Another music star, another fashion line.
Now Beyonce’s stepping out on the catwalk with plans to launch two clothing collections by next year, the fashion trade paper Women’s Wear Daily reported Monday. Her design collaborator is her mother, Tina Knowles, who’s also Beyonce’s stylist and the author of “Destiny’s Style: Bootylicious Fashion, Beauty and Lifestyle Secrets From Destiny’s Child.”
The first line will be more “funky and hip-hop,” while the other will be more like a designer collection with feminine dresses and separates, the duo told WWD.
The 22-year-old added: “People my age love fashion and want to dress in designer clothes, but can’t afford it. I want to do something that is affordable, but sophisticated and sexy and feminine–something I would wear.”
LOOK FOR … “Lord of the Rings” co-star Karl Urban to take on Matt Damon in the sequel to “The Bourne Identity.”
Urban will star as Damon’s archenemy in “The Bourne Supremacy,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Reunited?
Is Halle Berry patching things up with husband Eric Benet? Berry announced the two had split last week, but was seen spending the weekend in Los Angeles shopping with Benet’s daughter, India, the World Entertainment News Network reports. Whether that means the “Gothika” starlet and her sex-addicted R&B singer husband are making up remains to be seen.
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Compiled from RedEye news services and edited by Leo Ebersole ([email protected]) and Curt Wagner ([email protected])