Sylvester Stallone's hired help sue over a rocky relationship
Focus
Back in 1995, all Sylvester Stallone wanted for Christmas was a little extra help around the house—er, mansion—on Miami's Biscayne Bay. So he and future wife Jennifer Flavin hired five cooks and cleaners for the holiday season and asked them to abide by a few rules. Simple enough, right?
Wrong. This Yuletide, Stallone and Flavin will find something extra in their stocking—a $1.5 million lawsuit filed by the employees, who claim the pair subjected them to bizarre orders and then fired them without full pay. "The thrust of this lawsuit," says their attorney Ellis Rubin, "is this: They were stiffed."
Bullpucky, says the couple's attorney Marty Singer, who implies that the suit—like many against the famous—is a kind of blackmail. "They figure you sue a celebrity, the celebrity's going to want to settle." His clients, he adds, will fight.
Rubin says Flavin gave the five a laundry list of 10 rules, including:
Never look directly into the eyes of Sylvester Stallone. If eye contact is made, you could be fired.
If and when Mr. Stallone enters a room where you are, you are to back out and vanish immediately.
You will never speak to Sylvester Stallone's mother, Jackie Stallone, nor will you let her talk to you.
The day after Christmas, Rubin alleges, Stallone caught a worker breaking Rule No. 3 (You are not allowed to eat any food that belongs to the Stallone household) and had him canned. Next day, Rubin says, the rest were sacked when Flavin discovered they had accepted pens as gifts from her mother-in-law-to-be, thus violating the no-talking-to-Mom rule.
Says Singer: "There's no truth at all to these claims."
Pope Meets Popster
On Nov. 25, LeAnn Rimes, 17, who recorded two songs for Jesus, a CBS miniseries that will air next May, met with Pope John Paul II. Scoop asked the country singer to share her impressions.
How did it go?
Well, I got there two minutes before he walked in. Thank God he was late. He came in [and] gave a whole speech which was in, I think, Latin. I wish I was able to understand what he was saying. But it was so beautiful. Then, of course, we all stood in a line and went up to meet him. It was really cool.
Were you nervous?
Yes and no. It was such a huge honor to meet him. And there's this whole protocol you have to go through. That was the only nerve-racking part. I'm a strong Christian, and to meet someone like him, it touched me a lot, it really did, getting blessed by him.
What is your religious background?
I'm Baptist. I didn't quite get the whole feeling, but I totally respect [the Catholic] religion, and it was still really amazing.
Did the Pope know who you were?
I guess the guy who was with him told him about me and who I was, and he started blessing me. I just wish I was able to understand what he was saying. It was such a moving moment. I almost started crying.
You brought your bodyguard with you?
He's Catholic. It's what he dreamed of all his life.
So you didn't need him for protection.
I think they have enough protection there. There are plenty of Swiss guards around.
Yes, the Celeb's in the Mail
Why send ordinary holiday cards to people you last saw a decade ago, when you could raise money for a good cause—and own a bit of celebrity art—right up to the moment you seal the envelope? The Starlight Children's Foundation hopes to raise more than $400,000 by selling cards designed by such celebrities as Will Smith, Cindy Crawford and—the biggest seller—Rosie O'Donnell. AIDS Project Los Angeles has Tom Hanks and Jennifer Aniston making Christmas art. Leaning more toward the Grinch? It's not for charity, but Minnesota Moon Greeting Cards offers one showing Gov. Jesse Ventura and quoting his remark about organized religion as the refuge of "weak-minded people."
This Old Spook House
The Blair Witch has claimed another victim: the creepy pre-Civil-War-era house used in the final scene of The Blair Witch Project. The Griggs House, a five-bedroom home in Maryland's Patapsco Valley State Park, is in such disrepair that the state Department of Natural Resources has ordered it demolished within 90 days, even though fans still flock to it. "Rangers spend hours chasing people away," says a DNR spokeswoman. Local preservationists are seeking, so far unsuccessfully, an alternative. "With a little money and effort it could be restored," says Rosalyn Roddy of the Greater Patapsco Community Association. "It upsets me they have no regard for old places."
Ten-month Itch
Their wedding was just in February, but already the magic seems to have evaporated from Jason Priestley's marriage to makeup artist Ashlee Petersen. The couple, both 30, announced a trial separation Nov. 30. He recently directed an episode of The Beat, a new UPN show.
I'll Be Calling Hugh
When Simon Finch Rare Books was set to open in London's Notting Hill neighborhood, one of the shop's directors, Robie Uniacke, thought of an old friend. Hadn't Hugh Grant played a bookshop clerk in the movies? And wasn't that movie called Notting Hill? And wouldn't it just be kismet if Grant could spare some time to work at the store? Yes, thought Uniacke. And, surprisingly, yes said Grant. Which explains why the actor stepped behind the counter on opening day, Nov. 25. No retail newbie, Grant was able to call on past experience helping his grandmother sell leather bookmarks, guides and postcards at a bookstall at Chichester Cathedral. He later worked at a Notting Hill grocery, though he admits getting into trouble after showing up one day "with the worst hangover of my life."
Grant did not purchase any of the store's offerings, such as a first edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass ($56,000). "I'm not a collector," he said, adding that he prefers books that he has actually read "because I'm always so proud of having gotten from the beginning to the end."
Nevermore for Mother Barrymore
Jaid Barrymore has an odd way of showing her love for estranged daughter Drew: auctioning off her stuff on the Internet. Beginning on Nov. 15, she put some 13 of Drew's belongings up for bids on gavelnet.com. She was promptly portrayed in the media as, in her words, "a horrible person peddling Drew's things." Not true, insists Jaid, 53, who was approached with the idea. "It's nothing personal from her to me."
Instead, items included a Bad Girls script (which sold for S540) and a hat she wore in E. (which, priced at $45,900 by the site, hadn't sold after 15 days). "There have been a lot of lookers," maintains Terri Golas, VP of marketing. "I wouldn't call it a bomb."
All in all, Jaid wouldn't call it a good idea, either. "This has turned into such a nightmare," she says, adding that 20 percent of the proceeds go to Gilda's Place charity. "I honestly want to just go hide somewhere."
ON THE BLOCK
WOODS' LAND
He plays tough hombres in the movies (Contact, Another Day in Paradise), but off the set, James Woods likes to be pampered. So, around 1991, after purchasing a Beverly Hills residence that was once owned by violinist Jascha Heifetz, Woods tore it down to its foundation and had a 4,500-sq.-ft Frank Lloyd Wright-style home built to his specifications—which included a pool, gazebo and gym. These days the 52-year-old actor spends more than half his time on the East Coast, however, and the hilltop house, with its sweeping views of downtown L. and the Pacific Ocean, goes largely unused. So he's selling it for $8.75 million, a price designed to keep him comfortable.
- Contributors:
- Dan Jewel,
- Erik Meers,
- Michelle Caruso,
- Liz Corcoran,
- Sharon Cotliar,
- Michael Fleeman,
- Macon Morehouse,
- Gabrielle Saveri,
- Cynthia Wang.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
