HOME / keeping tabs: A summary of what's been in the tabloids.

More Monica, Less Cher

By Emily YoffePosted Thursday, Oct. 8, 1998, at 3:30 AM ET

More Monica, Less Cher
Thanks to Flytrap, sex crazed Washington is the new Hollywood.

By Emily Yoffe
(posted Wednesday, Oct. 7, 1998)

The White House remains the center of the tabloid universe this month as the magazines tout their scoops. In February, the Star revealed that Monica caught the president's eye by flashing her thong underwear at him. ("Those in the know realize that Star got it right long before Starr," says the publication.) A recent National Enquirer headline claims this new salacious revelation: "Hillary Orders Bill Into Sex Therapy." So pervasive is the Clinton saga that other celebrity news now seems to be commentary on the antics in Washington.
The biggest Clinton disclosure is, according to the Star, Clinton's supposed statement "I haven't made love to Hillary in 14 years." (If true, it's a tradition for impeachment-prone presidents. In The Final Days, Woodward and Bernstein's account of the end of the Nixon administration, Pat Nixon is quoted as telling one of her doctors that she and her husband had not had sex since the early 1960s.) The Star's source is Dolly Kyle Browning, an alleged former Clinton mistress. (Alleged Former Clinton Mistress is soon to appear on census forms as an official job category.) If Browning is right, that would explain Clinton's reported reaction to Hillary's demand that he get sex therapy. According to the Enquirer, he was "dumbstruck by Hillary's ultimatum because he thought she had given up on him and their marriage years ago."

But therapy is not necessarily the panacea Hillary imagines. The Star reports that Monica was "addicted to older, married men" and that with "psychologist to the stars, Dr. Irene Kassorla" she had been "undergoing intense therapy for six years to help her beat her obsession," but apparently to no avail. How else to explain this tawdry "world exclusive" in the Star: "Monica Cheated on Prez With Diet Guru and Wrecked His Marriage." George Borkacki, the owner of a fat farm Monica visited while she was having her affair with Clinton, told the Star that after intensely flirting with him, Monica called and asked him to come to her room to fix something. Maybe it was the air conditioning, because when he got there she was naked from the waist up. According to Borkacki--who is 50ish, gray haired, and married--she was suddenly on her knees, unzipping his pants. Recalls Borkacki: "It was a shock--well, it's not really a shock. You're a man, what would you do? It's no big deal. I think it's no big deal to anybody." That kind of stuff is no big deal to anybody except the independent counsel and Mrs. Borkacki. Somehow she found out about the encounter, filed for divorce, and left for her home in Poland. While at the spa Monica lost about 5 pounds.
It's probably for the best, then, that Monica never got one job she put on the wish list she presented to the president--"anything at George." According to the Globe, Monica had designs on John F. Kennedy Jr., editor of George magazine. A "friend" of Monica's said she "often fantasized about being wrapped in John's strong arms and snuggling up to his hairy chest." The Globe, which has always maligned Monica, continues its campaign against her. For months the Globe and Madeleine Albright were the only believers in Clinton's denials of his affair with Monica. Now the publication quotes a "White House legal staffer" who says "she's a calculating vixen" who "tried to blackmail President Bill Clinton when he attempted to end their affair"--by threatening to tell her parents--and that she should be "facing charges" for it. The way things are going in Washington, maybe it will become a federal offense to tell your mommy and daddy you've been naughty with someone.
The Star also offers a novel, wholly unsupported theory as to why, under oath, Clinton couldn't remember the gifts he'd given Monica or even if he'd ever been alone with her: Perhaps he's suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

Because Flytrap has so consumed the tabloids in recent weeks, the rest of its celebrity coverage reads almost like hidden messages to the scandal's main players. For example, maybe Hillary could learn something from explosively endowed actress Pamela Anderson's quest to tame her husband, Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee. According to the Star, after Lee was released from the Los Angeles County Jail, where he served time for assaulting Anderson, the actress hired a psychic healer to "drive the demons out of Tommy." It turns out that the root of their problem, according to the psychic, is that Anderson was Lee's mother in a past life.
On the other hand, perhaps Hillary should take as her role model Cameron Diaz, star of There's Something About Mary. According to the Enquirer, Diaz has ended her relationship with co-star Matt Dillon because of his womanizing. So definitive was her goodbye, reports the Globe, that she injured her finger when she ripped off the ring Dillon had given her.

Then again, maybe Hillary should do to Monica what actress Nia Long did to a dancer named Shane over the affections of basketball star Chris Webber. The two women confronted each other in a New York nightclub about their shared love interest. Soon, according to the Enquirer, "these women were fighting like heavyweight champions!" Long "mopped the floor" with her rival, who ended up running out of the club to keep from getting hurt.
And Hillary could take a lesson from the bride of humiliated sportscaster Marv Albert, who agreed to marry him on the condition that he "isn't allowed to make a move now without consulting with his wife first," the Globe reports, adding, "She's keeping Marv on a very tight leash." Heather Faulkiner stood by Albert last year during his trial for biting a former lover, a legal proceeding which revealed his penchant for wearing women's underwear. The new Mrs. Albert got him to promise there would be no more embarrassing sex stunts. She is so hard-line about this, the publication reports, that she made him promise "he would never wear any kind of women's clothing again--not even at Halloween or a fancy-dress costume party."

Two celebrities with regrets about their lives could perhaps get together with Bill for a self-assessment seminar. Cher has decided to give up on boy toys, says the Star. "There was a time when I lusted after them," it quotes her saying. "I'd drive around in my limo at night and if someone caught my eye, I'd have my driver invite him to have a drink with me in the car." But since the shock of the death of former husband Sonny Bono, she has taken a vow to stay celibate until she finds a middle-aged Mr. Right. And Michael Jackson now realizes all his plastic surgeries have not improved his looks, reports the Globe. An insider says, "It horrifies him that little kids, who don't know he's the King of Pop, are sometimes frightened at his appearance." In a sorrowful admission that shows he could be a Clinton speechwriter, Jacko supposedly said, "It's painful to live with what I did to myself, but I have no choice. It can't be fixed and it's all my fault.
Monica is understandably worried that she will never find a man, reports the Enquirer. An insider says she spends her days crying and bingeing and says: "I can't imagine I'll ever meet another man who can trust me. I've been so ridiculed, who could love me?" Perhaps she can team up with beautiful Halle Berry, who's also looking for a man, according to the Enquirer. A "pal" of the actress says she has a strategy for finding potential mates. 1) "[S]he starts her days by going to upscale grocery stores and strolling through the meat section. Halle wants a real man--someone who would obviously have a big appetite." 2) She hangs around car washes, where she can "see what kind of car the man is driving, which would give her an indication of his lifestyle."

If celebrities ever start applying for White House internships, the tabs can give some guidelines as to who to bring aboard. In the Keep Her Away From the Rope Lines category is Lisa Nicole Carson, a co-star on Ally McBeal, who, according to the Star, says she "has to have sex every day." And in the Let Her Deliver the Pizza category is country singer Shania Twain, who, reports the Enquirer, can't stand to be touched. "I almost become ill when I realize someone is about to touch me," the publication quotes her telling a friend.
Finally, the tabs offer a vision of how, four decades from now, Flytrap might ultimately play itself out. Forty years ago the country was scandalized when brunet temptress Elizabeth Taylor stole away Eddie Fisher from wife Debbie Reynolds, the blond mother of his children. The two women have feuded ever since. But now, according to the Globe, they have finally become friends. Reynolds supposedly says she recently confronted Taylor. "I said to her, 'What you did was wrong, you know.' She told me, 'I was selfish and I needed someone at the time. Please forgive me for what I did.' " Reynolds forgave her and now the two are talking about starring in a movie together to be written by Reynolds' daughter Carrie Fisher. Could it be that in 2038 we'll all be lining up to see Hillary and Monica star in their movie Bill Who?

Links

The National Enquirer and Star Web sites offer the latest in salacious news.

Emily Yoffe writes the "Keeping Tabs" column for Slate. You can e-mail the author at eyoffe@hotmail.com.

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Emily Yoffe is the author of What the Dog Did: Tales From a Formerly Reluctant Dog Owner. You can send your Human Guinea Pig suggestions or comments to .

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