Jezebel: rafaello follieri

Why Does Jennifer Lopez Hide In The Storage Closet At Airports? (Hint: It's Not The Paparazzi!)

Moe — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 09:00:00 EDT

First Class lounges aren't really exclusive enough for Jennifer Lopez anymore, but she's got a resourceful fix: she slips through a mysterious unmarked door in the lounge, giving the illusion she is entering some platinum VIP area, when really she's just hiding in a storage closet. Yeah, I couldn't have made that shit up either. [MSNBC]
Oh shit, and this JUST HAPPENED: so maybe JLo was just avoiding getting served with the $5 million lawsuit filed by the flight attendant her guard dog attacked. [TMZ]
But a subpoena in that 1999 nightclub shooting — shit, it sucks when you realize something that feels forever ago actually was forever ago — found her! [NY Post]
Verne Troyer is suing TMZ for $20 million over that sex tape thing. Not because it's a sex tape, but for copyright reasons. Show of hands: did anyone actually watch the clip of this? I really don't think he lost too many otherwise paying customers. If amateur midget porn is what you're into is a little clip really going to sate you? [TMZ]
Bill Clinton and Oprah Winfrey ran into each other at Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday party but sources say it didn't seem like they had much to say to one another. [Page Six]
Will Anne Hathaway put aside the hurt she feels and save the poor puppy Raffaello Follieri can no longer afford to have walked? Well, Anne?? [Page Six]

And speaking of our dashing Italian Vati-con, some socialite is pissed she invited him and Anne to some event and they paid for tickets and never showed up. Cry me a fucking river, Lauren Vernon. [NY Post]
Babyshambles is pulling out of the Glastonbury Festival. [Guardian]
Amy Winehouse is…still planning on performing! [Telegraph]
"I do not speak to those two. First of all, he drinks too much. And is very insulting. And they are not invited to my July Fourth party in the Hamptons, which is very big and which is my fifth annual and which everybody wants to come to. She and I will keep doing the show, of course, but I will have nothing to do with her otherwise." Now, I know it's summer, when Cindy Adams devotes an entire column about a group of reality stars who actually fess up to making less than $1,000 a show, but this column is seriously kind of awesome. [NY Post]
You can take Donda West's surgeon off your list of "Notorious Hollywood Plastic surgeons most likely to be nabbed on DUI charges" now. [AP]
If you haven't already heard about this from that one guy you know who could die happy if only for another Phish Reunion tour, well…Phish might be reuniting. [Reuters]
Will Smith's Fourth of July movie sounds reaaally promising. [Fox News]
Jessica Biel is looking kind of gaunt and French these days, like she's taken up an unhealthy lifestyle or something, and I mean that in the best way possible. [People]
Engaged: Uma Thurman, to some "financier." [He's Elle Macpherson's ex! -Ed.] [NY Daily News]
Engaged and actually planning to wed: Portia to Ellen. [NY Daily News]
Engaged and not actually planning to wed: Joel Madden to Nicole Richie. [People]

Loose Lips

Jessica — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 17:40:00 EDT

Jennifer Garner's rep says that reports reports of Jen and hubby Ben Affleck splitting are "100% fabricated." "There is not one ounce of truth to it," the flack adds. You can now start pasting together your shattered dreams. • Raffaello Follieri was hospitalized today for a sinus infection after his court appearance. And those reports of his opiate ingestion? Quoth Follieri's flack: "He was on a prescription and cough medicine from his doctors that contained codeine before retiring to bed that night." • This Justin Timberlake for Givenchy ad is perilously Photoshopped! It seriously looks nothing like him. [Us, People, Dlisted]

I'm Sure Claude Would Be Flattered And All, But $80 Million Is Almost What Afghanistan Made On Its Heroin Tax

Moe — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 18:30:00 EDT

Some anonymous collector just bought this Monet for $80.4 million from the kids of some famous collectors from Columbus, Indiana. No really, I thought it was a mistake too, but there really is a Columbus, Indiana, and before they died the couple who amassed this insane art collection were like the hipster royal family there. [NYT]
A Druze border policeman killed himself in Israel while Sarkozy was watching and the family is asking that his name not be released, but like, I kind of think it's a little late for that. [Haaretz]
I'm not saying we should adopt all Afghanistan's policies but $100 million just from taxing shit most countries pay hundreds of billions criminalizing sounds pretty tempting…[BBC
Obama is polling creepily well right now, which makes me nervous, but can you blame the voters when McCain is out there straight-talking about how his offshore drilling ideas are kind of cheap psychological tricks? [MSNBC]

Okay, if you haven't figured it out yet, Anne Hathaway's boyfriend Rafaello Follieri hired priests, bought robes, fabricated "engineering plans" and bribed low-level Vatican tourism officials — along with some sort of Italian journalist — to make people think he was the chief financial officer of the Vatican, endowed with the unique privilege of selling off Catholic Church properties all over the world, only all of that was a complete load of shit and he knew essentially no one, and the fraud is kind of awe-inspiringly brazen, and thankfully New York decided to digest its juicy bits. [NY Mag]
You know what, Nancy Pelosi? Amen. [Chicago Sun-Times]
If all the world's millionaires lived in a single city it would have almost two million more people than New York and no fucking clue where to get its nails done. [Yahoo]
"I don't go out as much as I used to. Instead of going to a bar I'll stay home and get a six-pack."A story on the dismal consumer sentiment numbers out today hits home to the blogger drinking a $3 22 ounce Sierra Nevada. [WSJ]
Florida is trying to cut down on carbs. [Wash Post