Celebrity Dish: Serving up the gossip you should know!
When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a lawyer. Not just any lawyer, but an entertainment lawyer. And in truth, the thought of drafting contracts for venues, negotiating with motion picture associations and settling copyright disputes still fascinates me.
Entertainment law is a unique thing. It ranges from immigration issues to bankruptcy declarations and everywhere in between. In essence, it’s all about providing whatever legal services are needed to those in the entertainment industry. And it seems like lately those legal services are constantly needed.
For example, actor John Travolta and his wife, actress Kelly Preston, were in the Bahamas last week as he testified in an extortion trial of paramedic Tarino Lightbourne and attorney Pleasant Bridgewater.
This story begins with the death of the couple’s 16-year-old son, Jett, on Jan. 2. Lightbourne, a medic, had Travolta sign a consent form. Travolta originally wanted Jett taken to a U.S. hospital, and that document, which Travolta previously testified that he signed in the heat of the moment, would have cleared Lightbourne of any liability should Jett not have been taken to the Rand Memorial Hospital in Grand Bahama.
According to the Associated Press, Travolta says the medic threatened to use the document to “imply that the death of my son was intentional and I was culpable in some way.” He claims that Lightbourne sought $25 million or he would sell stories to media implying that Jett’s death Travolta’s fault.
Lightbourne and Bridgewater have pleaded innocent, and the trial should conclude soon.
Another father with the same name, Jon Gosselin, also went to court last week in the name of his children. He sought a cease-and-desist order for network TLC to stop production on the family’s reality TV show, recently renamed Kate Plus Eight. The order demands that the TLC crew vacate the family’s property. TLC says that filming of the show not directly related to the 5-year-old sextuplets and 8-year-old twins is ongoing.
Talk show host David Letterman also dealt with his own extortion plot last week. He admitted, on air, to having affairs with female staffers after CBS News producer Joe Halderman allegedly threatened to reveal the secret if he did not receive $2 million. Halderman is now free on $200,000 bond after pleading not guilty to the blackmail scheme.
Also this week, Michael David Barrett appeared in federal court on Saturday after being arrested Friday night. According to the Associated Press, he is accused of taping surreptitious nude videos of ESPN reporter Erin Andrews while she was alone in hotel rooms. He faces federal charges of interstate stalking for taking the videos, trying to sell them to celebrity Web site TMZ and posting the videos online, the FBI said.
Now, if we could only have the cast of The Practice on these cases …
Krista Richmond is a journalist and pop culture enthusiast. Have a question, suggestion or hot gossip tip? Send them to her at krista@killerfilm.com.
