In fact, they're close. "He's my best friend," says the skater, 20, a product of his dad's relationship with secretary Laura Martinez, who raised him after an amicable split. "My kid has such a good head on his shoulders, if s hard for me to believe he is my kid," says the comic, 50. Take last New Year's Eve party at the Playboy Mansion. "Hef invited me, and I asked Paulie. He told me he had to ask his girlfriend's permission. It's every boy's dream, right? But he loves his old lady so much that he had to ask permission! Who is this guy?"
Something of a contradiction, actually. Rodriguez the younger—who spent New Year's with his model girlfriend Rainbow at a private party near his Chatsworth, Calif., home-is a high school dropout who prefers the History Channel to video games and Internet chat. He took up skateboarding at 13, turned pro at 16 and went on to earn gold medals at the X Games in 2004 and 2005. "Skateboarding attracts everybody," he says. "You could be the craziest punk rocker—Mohawk, spikes out of your jacket—and be friends with the baggy-pants hip-hop guy. You can have the nerdiest kid ever become the greatest skater ever."
Not that there's any nerd in P-Rod, his sport's teen heartthrob. Indeed, his father's Web site got so deluged with hits from Junior's groupies that it overloaded and briefly shut down. "All these 14-and 15-year-old girls send letters that say 'Put less of you and more of him because he is HOTT!' " the elder Rodriguez says. And how does that go over with Rainbow? "She knows I am chill," says P-Rod. "I won't go messing around."
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!
