Keeping Tabs

All You Can Eat

The tabs feast on binge eating, voluntary starvation and, of course, sex.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man in possession of a good fortune should not upon returning from his honeymoon let his wife work out at the gym with Jerry Seinfeld. This is the lesson learned by Broadway theater heir, Eric Nederlander, 32, when a week after coming back to New York from a honeymoon in Italy, his new wife Jessica Sklar, 26, met Seinfeld, 44, at the Reebok Sports Club. Before the newlyweds had time to unpack all their new china, the National Enquirer and the Star had photo spreads of Sklar and Seinfeld around town in full lip lock. According to the Globe, Nederlander–who will now save a fortune on anniversary gifts–contemplated an alienation of affection suit against the comedian but finally decided to simply file for divorce. The publication also reveals why Seinfeld would behave so perfidiously: He hadn’t had “good sex” since last year when he broke up with his young girlfriend Shoshanna Lonstein.

The tabs also tout the “shocking” resemblance between the two women but are uncharacteristically restrained in neglecting to mention that there is one (or, more accurately, two) crucial difference in the physiques of slender Jessica and bounteously well-endowed Shoshanna. Shoshanna, who became a tabloid celebrity in her own right by dating Seinfeld while she was still in high school, has recently launched her own line of lingerie.

Lingerie, says the Globe, will be the focus of Monica Lewinsky’s next career move: It reports that she would like to confer with Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss–who had her own lingerie company–when her fellow Santa Monica College alumna gets out of jail. The Globe does not reveal if Monica’s merchandise will come pre-stained.

There is, not surprisingly, even more Lewinsky news. According to the Enquirer, during her affair with Clinton, Secret Service agents feared her more than they did a possible assassin. Citing grand jury testimony, the publication describes how, last Christmas, the “Secret Service became frantic about the possibility of Monica turning up at a White House holiday reception hosted by the First Lady and attended by some 400 guests.” An employee in the White House social office testified that an agent at the party, upon discovering Lewinsky’s name on the guest list, rushed up to the employee and said, “We have to find her before Mrs. Clinton sees her.” It is presumed the agent was successful as there are no reports that either Hillary or Monica tried to dunk the other’s head in the wassail bowl.

O f even greater concern to the Secret Service were the times the temperamental Lewinsky spent alone with the president. The Enquirer reports that agent Steven Pape told the grand jury of a conversation he had with another agent. “If she [Monica] was going to do any harm to the President … I said she would do the–you know– it would be something along the lines of Lorena Bobbitt, if she was going to hurt him.” Had that happened, MSNBC would have had to change the name of The White House in Crisis to The President’s Penis Is Missing.

But even that is not as shocking as the photos all three tabloids have run of Lewinsky in exercise clothes. Since she was last seen in public, the former White House intern has ballooned to almost 180 pounds. She has joined a gym and has hired a $75 an hour personal trainer to help her peel off 55 pounds, reports the Star. Now imagine how much more happiness and how much less heartache there would be in the world if only Jerry Seinfeld liked full-figured gals, and Monica Lewinsky, not Jessica Sklar, had joined the Reebok Sports Club.

As inverse images of the wages of fame, Lewinsky and Ally McBeal star Calista Flockhart make a perfect pair. Under pressure, Lewinsky has expanded. Meanwhile, Flockhart has shrunk. So shocking is her appearance that the tabs, which luridly chronicle every celebrity chin waddle and thigh dimple, are now expressing concern about her and other stick figure actresses. According to the Star the 5 foot 6 inch actress is down to 95 pounds, having lost about 15 pounds in the past year. She is so weak from dieting and compulsive exercising that the show’s producers have cut back on her screen time, says the publication. Flockhart and her representatives deny she has an eating disorder. The actress even called a Los Angeles radio station to say that she enjoys gorging on junk food. Such denials are usually a prelude to hospitalization, recovery, and a tearful interview with Oprah, Barbara, or Diane.

The tabs also report that two celebrity spouses couldn’t quite wait until their dearly beloved’s bodies were fully cold before finding that they could learn to love again. A few months ago at the funeral of singer Tammy Wynette, her fifth husband George Richey–perhaps stealing some moves from the finale of a James Brown concert–had to be repeatedly held up by friends to keep from collapsing. He even threatened to take the body of his dead wife home. Perhaps he could have stashed her in the backseat of her Rolls Royce, which, according to the Globe, he has now given to his new girlfriend, a former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader 30 years his junior. And Rep. Mary Bono, R-Calif., the widow of Sonny, started dating nine months after his skiing accident death. Mary, who won Sonny’s congressional seat, has been seeing Brian Prout, drummer for country group Diamond Rio, reports the Star. Although the congresswoman says, “I feel like this weight has been lifted off of me,” Bono’s mother calls the relationship “disgusting.” But, according to the Globe, there may be more heartbreak in the widow’s future. It reports that Prout is a “womanizer with more notches on his bedpost than Casanova.” The Globe even says that the drummer is already romancing a Nashville waitress.

A nd a book that is portraying the late Princess Diana as neurotic, jealous, and out of control is causing new grief for Prince Charles and his lover Camilla Parker Bowles. They have released a joint statement denying any involvement with Charles: Victim or Villain?, the Enquirer reports, but royal watchers say the author, Penny Junor, would not have won the cooperation of so many of their friends without the couple’s tacit approval. The book charges that Diana was the first to cheat (with her bodyguard), that she used to call Parker Bowles and make death threats, and that Charles was relieved when she died. But Diana may yet get her revenge. The Globe relays a “startling report transmitted on the world-wide internet” that Diana has been cloned by a “mad scientist” and that the baby will be born by the end of the year at a secret laboratory on an island off the coast of China.

The tabs are getting fed up with women who have become rich and famous by telling everyone else how to be better. All three tabs have run stories about the nude photos of Dr. Laura Schlessinger, 51, radio host and moral arbiter, that have appeared on the Internet. The Globe reports that at first Schlessinger claimed the more than 20-year-old photos were not of her. She subsequently filed suit claiming that she owned the photos, and they were temporarily taken off the Web site. The photos were released by Bill Ballance, 80, a former radio talk show host who says he and Schlessinger were once lovers, who, in his memorable phrase, used to thrash around “like a couple of crazed weasels.”

And the Globe is at the forefront of an anti-Oprah Winfrey backlash this week with the story “Oprah Revolt! Fans charge: You’re too big for your britches!” Actually, part of the problem is that fans liked the talk show host better when she was bigger britched, before she became the Vogue cover model. They are also sick of her constant preaching on self-improvement, says the publication. One “insider” at her production company is quoted as saying, “Oprah’s always been religious, but she’s gone overboard thinking she’s been given a specific mission on Earth.”

If Oprah’s not safe, no one is. To prove it, the Enquirer reports that the ghost of mild-mannered Ozzie Nelson is haunting his former Hollywood home. He’s a very friendly ghost. The publication says female residents wake in the middle of the night when they feel the late Ozzie nuzzling their necks. Sounds like a premise for a sitcom.