Los Angeles – Hours after strolling the red carpet in a strapless black dress, Paris Hilton traded her designer duds for a jail-issued jumpsuit.
The 26-year-old heiress checked into the Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood just after 11:30 p.m. Sunday. She’s expected to serve three-weeks for violating her probation in an alcohol-related reckless driving case.
Hilton surrendered to sheriff’s deputies after making a surprise visit to the MTV Movie Awards in the afternoon.
“I am trying to be strong right now,” she told reporters on the red carpet. “I’m ready to face my sentence. Even though this is a really hard time, I have my family, my friends and my fans to support me, and that’s really helpful.”
Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore said Hilton was easy to work with.
“Her demeanor was helpful. She was focused, she was cooperative,” he said.
Hilton turned herself in at the Men’s Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles just after 10:30 p.m., then was escorted to the all women’s facility in Lynwood, where she was booked, fingerprinted and issued a jail uniform, Whitmore said.
She also was given her first meal: cereal, bread and juice.
So far, Hilton does not have a cellmate, Whitmore said.
The “Simple Life” star will be housed in the “special-needs” unit of the 13-year-old jail, separate from most of its 2,200 inmates. The unit contains 12 two-person cells reserved for police officers, public officials, celebrities and other high-profile inmates.
Like other inmates in that unit, Hilton will take her meals in her cell and will be allowed outside the 12-foot-by-8-foot space for at least an hour each day to shower, watch TV in the day room, participate in outdoor recreation or talk on the telephone. No cell phones or BlackBerrys are permitted in the facility, even for visitors.
Los Angeles – Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has split with his wife of 10 years.
The 35-year-old pro wrestler-turned-action star announced his separation from wife Dany Garcia Johnson in a statement to People magazine on Friday.
“We’ve been fortunate enough to spend the last 17 years together as a couple and look forward to spending the rest our lives together as best friends and business partners,” the statement said. “We will continue to advance and manage our business interests, our philanthropic efforts and most importantly the raising of our child together.” Garcia Johnson is the CEO of a wealth management firm. The pair have a 5-year-old daughter, Simone Alexander.
Johnson has appeared in the films “Walking Tall,” “The Mummy Returns” and “The Scorpion King.” He recently finished shooting a movie based on the television show “Get Smart” that stars Steve Carell.
Los Angeles – An actor is suing “Jackass” star Johnny Knoxville, TV talk show host Jimmy Kimmel and radio personality Adam Carolla, claiming he was never paid $10 million for doing a below-the-belt stunt that left him severely injured.
Perry Caravello claims Kimmel never paid him for his work in the 2003 TV movie “Windy City Heat.” According to the suit, Knoxville also promised to pay him to promote the DVD release of the film on Carolla’s show last fall if he agreed to place his genitals in a mousetrap.
“Plaintiff agreed to do so, and, much to his emotional tranquility and to his physical harm, was severely injured when the trap literally went on his manhood,” the suit contended.
Caravello also was humiliated when clips of the incident, which he says were filmed without his permission, made it to the Internet, his suit claims.
The suit, filed Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court against Knoxville and others, alleges fraud, negligence and unjust enrichment.
The suit claims that Caravello signed a contract with Dakota North Entertainment Inc., a company that Kimmel heads. But Kimmel, Knoxville and others never paid Caravello or gave him an accounting of profits and royalties from DVD sales of “Windy City Heat,” the suit claims.
It seeks a total of $10.5 million in damages.
Calls to representatives for Knoxville, Kimmel and Carolla were not returned.
Los Angeles – Larry Birkhead, the father of Anna Nicole Smith’s baby, has countersued his former attorney, claiming she defrauded him out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The lawsuit filed Friday in Superior Court claims Debra Opri offered to represent Birkhead for free during a paternity dispute involving the baby because the publicity would benefit her career.
Birkhead’s lawsuit was filed just days after Opri filed her own suit claiming that Birkhead didn’t pay his bills for her legal services.
Birkhead’s lawsuit accuses Opri of depositing at least $865,000 owed to him for an unnamed project into an attorney client trust account against his wishes. After Opri refused to turn over the money, Birkhead fired her, the lawsuit said.
“Opri placed her own career desires and needs as a priority over the needs, interests and desires of her own client,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit said Opri solicited donations to a legal fund and revealed confidential information during media interviews – all without Birkhead’s consent. Opri is also accused of charging Birkhead for her travel expenses, dinners with friends and entertainment expenses.
In a statement released Friday, Opri said her former client was avoiding the issue of his unpaid legal fees.
“He has now admitted, however, that he can pay his legal bills having received over $1 million in a media deal,” she wrote.
“This does not include the untold millions he has received for selling photos of his daughter.” Opri has said she spent hundreds of hours working on Birkhead’s behalf and had to travel to multiple states and outside the country. Her lawsuit did not specify a dollar amount.
Birkhead sued Smith in October seeking a paternity test of her daughter, Dannielynn Hope, to determine who was the baby’s father.
Howard Stern, Smith’s longtime companion and attorney, had also claimed to be the father and was listed on the baby’s birth certificate.
A Los Angeles judge ruled in Birkhead’s favor in December, but the DNA testing was not performed until months later. Smith died in Florida on Feb. 8 of an accidental overdose of prescription drugs.
Paternity tests released in April revealed that Birkhead was the baby’s father.
New York – Rosie O’Donnell has had “an interesting year,” she confided Sunday, and a lot of it will be in her new book, “Celebrity Detox,” coming this fall.
Speaking at a breakfast gathering at BookExpo America, the publishing industry’s annual national convention, O’Donnell said her long-delayed memoir on fame will not be “vindictive” or “mean-spirited,” but will offer a candid look at her very public life, including her brief, battling stint on “The View.” “It is, in fact, a drug,” she said of fame, and spoke of seeing peers so radically, and scarily, transformed by celebrity that they looked like victims of “crystal meth.” O’Donnell, looking healthy but tired on a Sunday morning, noted that her book was supposed to come out a few years ago, but she decided it wasn’t ready, not quite “cooked.” Her time on “The View” convinced her she was ready to start baking again. She called the book “half blog,” half “straight” writing.
Last month, O’Donnell ended an eight-month tenure on “The View” that lifted the show’s ratings and, perhaps, the blood pressure of show creator Barbara Walters. O’Donnell feuded with Donald Trump and frequently had snippy exchanges with the more conservative Elisabeth Hasselbeck.
“We’ve had to change the epilogue,” she said of “Celebrity Detox,” then joked that her next career move would be “auditioning for ‘The Apprentice.”‘
Detroit – The Rev. Al Sharpton has brought his campaign to clean up hip-hop lyrics to Motown, and organizers hope to collect thousands of bars of soap as symbols of the effort.
Sharpton and the Rev. Horace L. Sheffield III, pastor of New Galilee Missionary Baptist Church, talked about the campaign Saturday outside the Motown Historical Museum.
Sharpton said it made sense to promote the hip-hop campaign in Detroit because NAACP leaders plan to conduct a mock funeral for the “N” word during the group’s July convention in the city.
“The 1960s were the Motown sound and James Brown,” Sharpton said as he stood in front of the museum, which includes the former Motown Records studio. “But they did not call us the ‘N’ word and they did not degrade women.” The campaign began last month in New York City with Sharpton challenging the recording industry on denigrating lyrics.
Organizers say they plan to soon roll out the effort in Los Angeles.
The bars of soap will be donated to shelters and halfway houses for women, organizers said.
