Jail term may be imminent for Eminem
Rapper Eminem was arraigned Wednesday on two felony weapons charges stemming from a tussle outside Hot Rocks Cafe in Detroit. The Grammy winner, otherwise known as Marshall Mathers, allegedly pulled a gun and began fighting with a man who was kissing his wife, Kimberly Mathers. Witnesses told prosecutors that Mathers, 27, pointed the gun and yelled “I’m going to kill you.” The gun was unloaded. The rapper had applied for a gun-carrying permit in October but didn’t attend a required safety course.
A subdued, handcuffed Mathers was released on a $100,000 bond after being ordered to furnish an itinerary of his upcoming two-month tour. His next court appearance is scheduled for July 11. The maximum penalty for a concealed weapon and assault with a deadly weapon is five years in prison, but Macomb County Prosecutor Carl Marlinga said about 17 months is probably all Eminem would serve since he doesn’t have prior offenses.
Meanwhile, wife Kimberly, who was charged Monday with a misdemeanor of disorderly conduct, disputed the prosecutorial version of events in a letter printed in the Detroit Free Press. She said Eminem “jumped to conclusions” and that “my husband came up to Hot Rocks to check up on me, why is still unknown to me because if I was to cheat on him it wouldn’t be in a neighborhood bar where he knows I am.” A good defense isn’t always an offense.
ROBERT SMITH TO BANDMATES SEE YA: Cure frontman Robert Smith says all those reports and rumors are true the 24-year-old Goth-pop-rock band is history after its current tour. Smith let the rest of band know with the lyrics to the song “Maybe Someday,” off the new album “Bloodflowers.” It includes the lines “No, I won’t do it again/ I don’t want to pretend/ If it can’t be like before, I’ve got to let it end.”
“That’s the one song on the album about ending the Cure,” says Smith. “As soon as the others heard that one, their faces dropped. This is our swan song. I wanted one on there that said it. Some of the other songs, if you put them in the context of this is the last Cure album, you can read that into them. But I wasn’t really writing about the end of the Cure (then).” Of course, with its ever-evolving lineup, some would argue that Smith is the Cure, so how much of a breakup can there be? Besides, Smith was talking seriously about killing off the Cure as long ago as 1989. This time, though, he says it’s definite. He has no plans for post-Cure projects as yet.
WHAT’S UP, TIGER LILY: Paula Yates, girlfriend of the late INXS singer Michael Hutchence, had her day in court, and a satisfactory one at that. Yates, a TV personality and author, won substantial, undisclosed libel damages Wednesday from the publishers of a book that said she entrapped the singer into a relationship by deliberately becoming pregnant. The Mail on Sunday tabloid, which published excerpts from “Michael Hutchence” by Vince Lovegrove last year, also was there to present formal apologies. Yates and Hutchence, who were partners from 1994 until his death in November 1997, had a daughter, Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily, born July 22, 1996.
After the hearing, Yates said, “I am happy. I think when people start to tell lies about a 3-year-old child who has lost her father, anyone would take action,” The British publishers, Faber & Faber, and its original Australian publishers, will pay damages and legal costs.
GIVE ME DOWN-TO-THERE HAIR: WB wants long beautiful hair, shining, gleaming, streaming, flaxen, waxen, shoulder-length or longer. The network, home to “Felicity,” “Dawson’s Creek” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” freaked out last January after “Felicity” star Keri Russell’s chop job. Her shorn locks have been blamed for the show’s lagging ratings, so much so that entertainment president Susanne Daniels declared to TV reporters, “nobody is cutting their hair again on this network.” The network insists the ban isn’t official, but spokesman Brad Turrell told the New York Post that, “We wouldn’t like it if Keri Russell cut her hair again. You don’t want to radically alter the look of a character from one season to the next.”
Today’s People Column was compiled by Vera H-C Chan and Randy McMullen from staff and wire reports. Comments? Write to us c/o the Times, P.O. Box 8099, Walnut Creek, CA 94596-8099. Or call 925-943-8262, fax 925-943-8362, or e-mail spin@cctimes.com.
Milestones
Lawsuit filed: Against Mike Myers. Universal Pictures claims the actor had a legal commitment to make a film based on his German Expressionist film buff character Dieter from the Saturday Night Live skit “Sprockets.” Myers, who expressed shock at the suit, said to Reuters that “the script was unworkable. I cannot in good conscience accept $20 million and cheat moviegoers who pay their hard-earned money to see my work by making a movie with an unacceptable script.”
Birthdays: Retired Supreme Court Justice Byron White (83), former President Suharto of Indonesia (79), former first lady Barbara Bush (75), actress Dana Wynter (70), comedian Joan Rivers (67), actress Millicent Martin (66), actor James Darren (64), actor Bernie Casey (61), singer Nancy Sinatra (60), singer Chuck Negron of Three Dog Night (58), musician Boz Scaggs (56), actor Don Grady (56), rock musician Mick Box of Uriah Heep (53), actress Sonia Braga (50), actress Kathy Baker (50), country musician Tony Rice (49), singer Bonnie Tyler (47), actor Griffin Dunne (45), cartoonist Scott Adams (43), actor-director Keenen Ivory Wayans (42), singer Mick Hucknall of Simply Red (40), musician Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran (38), R&B singer Doris Pearson of Five Star (34), actress Julianna Margulies (33), actor Dan Futterman (33), R&B singer Nicci Gilbert of Brownstone (30), actress Kelli Williams (30)