Jose Lambiet is a columnist at The Palm Beach Post. He has covered South Florida celebrities, billionaires, politicos, socialites and sports figures for the past 10 years. In the preceding decade, he plied the journalism trade in such exotic locales as Fairbanks, Alaska; Nashville; Cologne, Germany; and New York City, where he covered crime and mayhem for the venerable New York Daily News.
The guv went on Greta Van Susteren’s On The Record on Fox News Monday night wondering if his opponent for the U.S. Senate, Marco Rubio, used the Republican party’s credit card to get his back waxed.
Yikes!
Crist is behind in the polls, but still!
Crist matter-of-factly threw that line at Greta while the two discussed the recent revelations that Rubio had used a party card for personal expenses. Check out the exchange, and vote in the poll below.
Rush Limbaugh cares as much for baby turtles as he does for the Democrats’ jackass.
Palm Beach radio talker Limbaugh is sick of laws protecting the giant marine reptiles, and he wants everyone to know.
Limbaugh is buying newspaper ads this week — one in today’s Shiny Sheet and another later this week in the Palm Beach Post– to poke fun at the Town of Palm Beach’s policy that force the 300 or so households lucky enough to live on the beach to turn off outdoors lights from March 1 until October 31.
Within that time span, giant sea turtles — including several endangered species — dig the sand in the middle of the night to lay eggs, and their babies hatch in early fall.
Artificial lights are known to confuse the animals. They use the moon to navigate to nesting grounds then back to the ocean.
In his ad, Limbaugh mentions a phony group, the Turtle Preservation Society of Palm Beach, welcoming back turtles and hatchlings.
“The lights are off in eager anticipation of your arrival in May,” the ad reads.
A picture show a turtle roaming the sand in broad daylight.
“Kathryn (Rogers, Limbaugh’s galpal) and I bought a full page ad in the Shiny Sheet Sunday to make a subtle protest of all the local and state ordinances requiring people who live on the beach in Palm Beach to go dark EIGHT months of the year (!!!!!) for sea the turtles,” Limbaugh told Page2Livein an email.
For more, and the poll, see below or click(Read more…)
The popular chairs of the non-profit’s yearly Palm Beach gala, Frank and Geri Morrow, resigned last week after they were told that they’d have to have all features of future events approved by the group’s full-time staff.
Usually, the chair of Palm Beach galas exert tremendous control. They pick the entertainment, decorations, menus and the seating arrangements with little, or no, staff involvement. And attendance depends on a chair’s popularity.
“We resigned when they told us we’d have to get everything approved,” Frank Morrow said. “They are not really giving us a reasons why the policy changed. This year’s event (click here) was very successful.
“But one thing that (CEO) Mary Barnes indicated is that she thinks the gala had become ‘too societal,’ too much of a party and not enough of a fund-raiser. Well, if they want full control, now they’ve got it.”
Sheen with Mueller at the Mar-a-Lago bat mitzvah of Mueller's sister in October
Two and a Half Men star Charlie Sheen was nabbed in Aspen, Colo., on Christmas morning after wife No. 3, former Benjamin School cheerleader Brooke Mueller, accused him of choking her during a heated argument.
Mueller wasn’t injured but TMZ reported Mueller may have been legally drunk at the time of the confrontation and her call to 911. Citing law enforcement sources, TMZ claims cops had the lovebirds tested for alcohol use and Mueller registered a .13 percent blood alcohol level. In most states, someone blowing more than .08 while at the wheel of a car is considered to be driving drunk.
Sheen, by the way, blew a .04.
The incident occured about 8:30 a.m.
Sheen, 44, was released on $8,500-bond late Friday after spending most of the day in a Pitkin County slammer. He was charged with assault, menacing and criminal mischief.
According to a Sheen spokesman, the two were spending the holiday at a condo owned by Mueller’s mom, Palm Beach socialite Moira Fiore.
According to Pitkin County records, Fiore has owned properties in the swanky ski town for more than a decade. She paid $7 million for a four-bedroom mountainside condo a year ago. It was unclear late Friday whether the confrontation took place at the condo. Fiore didn’t return calls and Mueller’s voice mail was full.
Sheen and Mueller have been seen often in Palm Beach over the past couple of years. They were spotted at Mar-a-Lago in October at the lavish bat mitzvah of Mueller’s 13-year-old half sister, Sydney Wolofsky.
Sheen and Realtor Brooke were introduced at a 2006 party by actress Rebecca Gayheart. A couple months later, Fiore told me that both Mueller and Sheen were absolutely clean and sober after they separately battled drugs and alcohol. While growing up in Palm Beach, Mueller was known to be quite at ease at wild house parties.
“I’ve never seen my daughter happier,” Fiore told me when it was announced that Brooke and Sheen were an item. “She told me they laugh morning, noon and night, and that she’s never been more comfortable with someone. Charlie says he loves her personality and, of course, her looks. As a mother, if they’re happy, I’m happy.”
When Fiore was asked how she felt about Sheen’s drug abuse, alleged online teen-porn cruising, his paying thousands for high-class hookers and his gambling, Fiore said: “What matters is how he treats my daughter.”
Right on time for Christmas, here comes a good, old-fashioned Palm Beach society cat fight.
Several sources tell Page2Live that Diana Ecclestone, who climbed the social ladder through her marriage to aging PGA National developer Llwyd Ecclestone, and her former BFF, Michele Kessler, are experiencing a serious chill.
Just last week at the Historical Society of Palm Beach County’s gala at Club Colette, staffers assigning dinner seats — always a science on The Island — were told that gala chairwoman Ecclestone didn’t want the comely Kessler, wife of credit card mogul Howard Kessler, “in her sight.”
“We had to sit Michele at one of the head tables, but we tried to make sure Diana couldn’t see her,” the staffer said. “They always used to sit together. Michele did complain a little that she couldn’t see the dance floor.”
What’s their beef? Find out below or click (Read more…)
If you believe there’s nothing more to golfer Tiger Woods’ mysterious Black Friday car crash than the official line, then I’ve got some land next door to him on Jupiter Island for sale.
The superstar golfer was hurt in the wee hours when he backed his Escalade out of his driveway in the Isleworth gated community of Windermere, near Orlando, and hit a fire-hydrant then a tree.
So happens that, on the same day, the Boca Raton-based National Enquirer hit the supermarket counters in the Orlando area with a front page story outing Woods’ alleged mistress.
Woods and Nordegren
And you thought the man has no personality?
Whether the golf superstar’s Swedish wife, former nanny Elin Nordegren, had seen the Enquirer’s story before she went outside to “help” Woods, as she claimed, is unclear. She told cops she broke the Escalade’s back window with a golf club so that he could get out.
You don’t suppose the lacerations to Woods face, allegedly suffered in the accident, occurred after the wife caught up with her gossip reading?
For more, and the poll, look below or click (Read more…)
JLo, Marc Anthony and Floyd, the German shepherd guard dog (Courtesy www.celebrities.au)
A flight attendant on a private jet carrying salsero Marc Anthony and his wife, singer/actress Jennifer Lopez, was attacked by the couple’s guard dog in flight because she was carrying eating utensils to their table.
So the flight attendant, Lisa Wilson, is suing the couple in a Brooklyn, N.Y., court over the 2006 attack in a Gulfstream jet. Wilson says the snarling dog lunged and head-butted her, causing her to fall and injure her back.
For her pain and suffering, she is demanding $5 million.
According to the New York Daily News, the German shepherd, Floyd, received military-style training and has a thing for sharp objects being handled near the Dolphins’ minority owner Anthony. According to the court documents, the glamorous couple’s personal chef also has been harassed by the pooch.
An animal behavior expert hired by Wilson’s legal team said the dog is dangerous and the famous couple knew it. Early in the flight, Anthony warned Wilson not to look at Floyd in the eyes and call his name when she wanted to pass by.
“The dog was obviously dangerous and we will prove at trial that it was only a matter of time before he hurt someone,” Wilson’s lawyer, William Cafaro, told the News.
Back in the days: Varga and Mersentes (Palm Beach Post file photo)
Stolen nude pictures of a Palm Beach socialite.
Allegations of spying and stealing against a well-known society butler.
Big money. Conspiracy. Intrigue.
The latest filing in a Palm Beach County circuit court by the new husband of diet guru Robert Atkins‘ 72-year-old widow has it all.
Alexis Mersentes, 72, a serial groom of rich women who married the multi-millionaire Veronica Atkins in 2007, has joined his ex-girlfriend, former Worth Avenue store owner Ildiko Varga, 57, in a $1 million-lawsuit that Varga originally brought against him.
Double bogey for Jupiter Island golfer Greg Norman!
Not only is he dealing with his separation from new wife Chris Evert, the Boca Raton-based former tennis star, but now he’s got a ticked off ex-wife to deal with.
She contends in new paperwork filed in the Martin County courthouse in Stuart that his $2 million wire transfer to her June 15 was about $72,000 short. She asked a judge to force Norman to pay up, or order arbitration.
According to their contract, the ex-missus, a former flight attendant, will be $103 million richer by 2023 as a result of the agreement they signed when they were divorced two years ago.
So, what’s $72,000?
“It’s a substantial sum of money,” said Andrassy’s lawyer in West Palm Beach, Jack Scarola. “I have no desire to annoy Mr. Norman. But he has an obligation to meet his contractual commitments. If someone owes $72,000, just pay up.”
Andrassy, leaving a divorce hearing with lawyer Jack Scarola in 2007 (The Palm Beach Post archives)
Norman’s divorce attorney,Jeff Fisher, declined comment. But in his response filed in court, Fisher wrote that Norman and his ex promised they’d seek arbitration for disputes instead of the court system.
Andrassy’s recent motion to enforce is nothing more than a “method to feed information (usually of a disparaging nature) about the former husband to the media.”
The $72,000 alleged shortfall, according to court papers, comes from the calculation of Andrassy’s share in Norman’s Colorado ranch, Seven Lakes Lodge. She’s supposed to get close to $780,000 a year for the ranch, but got much less.
The motion reopens the saga of golfer/vintner’s divorce, which was filed in June 2006 after Andrassy accused him of cheating on her with tennis champ Evert. Although Norman and Andrassy were officially divorced when he married Evert in June 2008, they’ve been ironing some of their differences since.
If Palm Beacher Rush Limbaugh is too offensive to be a part-owner of the St. Louis Rams, then why areFergie and singer/actress Jennifer Lopez?
King, who hijacked a hearing about football injuries, said: “I don’t think anything that Rush Limbaugh said was offensive, but withFergie and with J-Lo, they have, between the two of them, alleged that the CIA are terrorists and liars. They’ve promoted sexual abuse of women. They’ve used the N-word, verbal pornography, recreational drug use, etc. And they are owners of the Dolphins. And it’s also ironic that Fergie was approved as an owner on the very day that you made your statement on Rush Limbaugh.”
JLo
And King left out a few things.
He didn’t seem to remember the time when Fergie was so drunk she peed on herself during a show. And he left out Dolphins part-owner Serena Williams, the Palm Beach Gardens tennis titan whose obscene tirade at a line judge at this year’s U.S. Open was seen by a worldwide audience.
And he’s got the JLo thing wrong. Her hubby, salsero Marc Anthony, is an owner — JLo isn’t listed on the team’s media guide as one. She does accompany him to games and often ends up in game photos.
As for Fergie, the sale of her shares into the team is pending.
Still, Goodell’s response was little else than a typical D.C. topic-shifting ploy. He talked about Donovan McNabb, the Philadelphia Eagles QB whom Limbaugh once called “overrated.”
King ended his questioning by telling Goodell to listen to JLo and Fergie songs and report back.
“I’d ask you to go back and take a look at the owners of the Dolphins, and . . . the songs that they recorded, review those lyrics, and I’ll provide some of those lyric songs to you,” he said, “and I’ll ask you to come back and respond to that question after the hearing as to whether you’ll put the same scrutiny on those owners who have really shined a negative light on the NFL as opposed to somebody that the NFL apparently just doesn’t agree with his politics.”
The Limbaugh controversy erupted earlier this month when star conservative radio talker was dropped from a group of investors who bid on the hapless Rams. Goodell spoke against Limbaugh becoming an investor, as did players and current team owners — mostly for things Limbaugh may or may not have said concerning race.
Meanwhile Dolphins majority owner Stephen M. Ross, whose Palm Beach home is two miles south of Rush’s, has stocked the team’s ownership with celebrities. The roster includes tennis star Venus Williams, Serena’s sister, and Miami singer Gloria Estefan and husband Emilio. The Dolphins signed a commercial deal with Palm Beach troubadour Jimmy Buffett and had hip-hopper T-Pain redo the team’s fight song.
Said Dolphins spokesman Harvey Greene: “We have no comment, except to reaffirm that our limited partners were approved through the appropriate process by the NFL.”