Lindsay Lohan‘s legal troubles may result in her biggest windfall in recent years. Offers for the troubled actress’ before and after prison interview are soaring to more than $500,000, the New York Post reports.
Even TV networks, who usually just pay for photos or video rather than directly to the subject, are putting in bids by joining forces with weekly magazines to score an interview with her.
Meanwhile, the Post said that a desperate Lohan might even take on Robert Shapiro, who successfully defended OJ Simpson in his murder trial, in an effort to overturn her 90-day sentence, which is to start July 20.
A source told The Post’s Page Six, “The irony is Lindsay is in demand. The bidding is over $500,000 for the rights to the pre-jail interview, the prison diary and the first chat when she is released.
“But Lindsay is still convinced she’ll get a reduced term — even if she has to go to rehab afterwards for longer. She has spoken to a number of lawyers over the weekend. She’s even seeing a psychic for guidance.”
On Saturday, Lohan met with Chicago-based lawyer Stuart V. Goldberg, who told the Post, “Her life is a perfect storm. I think she is a wounded child. She is very fractured. She is overwhelmed. She doesn’t seem to have full awareness of what’s going to befall her. No client recognizes the gravity of the situation until they hear those bars close. You have to numb yourself to exist under the gaze of 3 billion eyes every day.”
Goldberg said he advised Lohan to move out of Los Angeles, “away from bad company, and to somewhere like New York or Chicago, where she’d have a better chance at complying with her probation.”
Mel Gibson is in therapy because of his “unhealthy” relationship with girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva, People reports.
And he had been seeking help before the damning tapes apparently showing him ranting against his ex were leaked, friends said.
Gibson sought professional help to try to get out of the relationship as smoothly as possible, the friends claim.
But those hopes exploded in the most spectacular fashion imaginable this week as leaked tapes appeared to show him threatening to attack her with a bat, put her ‘in a f***ing rose garden’ – and claim she ‘deserved’ being punched in the face, losing her teeth.
And now a third recording has been released with the actor apparently making a racial slur against a Latino worker.
The meltdown in the relationship is exactly what Gibson feared and took steps to avoid, according to friends.
‘He realized how unhealthy the relationship was and knew that they were in a bad place and he was getting his buttons pushed,’ a friend told People, saying the star got therapy.
‘He wanted to figure out how to extricate himself from this unhealthy relationship peacefully and calmly. Which is what he did.’
The couple’s split around March initially appeared smooth, and in May the two signed a custody settlement for their 8-month-old daughter, Lucia.
Gibson’s lawyer Stephen Kolodny previously described the deal as ‘very generous support payments, joint custody and eventually 5-0/50 custody of Lucia,’ while the Russian singer claimed that payments have since dried up.
A source close to the case claims the leaked tapes were recorded in February on the heels of a heated exchange in January.
The friend says Gibson is still in therapy. Asked how he is holding up, the friend told People: ‘He’s coping as well as can be expected.’
Looks like Brad Pitt had a close shave.
The actor, whose weirdly unkempt and sometimes braided and beaded beard has raised eyeballs during the past year, debuted his clean-shaven face on Monday during his first day at work on the Los Angeles set of his new movie, “Moneyball.”
Pitt will play Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane in the film, which also stars Jonah Hill, Robin Wright and Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Pitt, 46, who said he grew the beard out of “boredom,” said he has been preparing for the big shave since last month.
Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant is being honored with a star in a music sidewalk in Memphis, Tenn.
Plant was presented Monday with a star that will be placed on the Orpheum Theater Sidewalk of Stars on Beale Street.
The Commercial Appeal reports that the award honors Plant for what are described as tireless efforts to preserve the blues.
During the presentation ceremony, Plant spoke of blues pioneers like Sonny Boy Williamson, Sleepy John Estes and W.C. Handy in acknowledging that a generation of British musicians owe a debt to early Southern blues artists.
lsmith@denverpost.com
— The Associated Press also contributed to this report
