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Friday, Oct 27, 2000 4:42 PM UTC

New “Grease” getting greasy

Movie name oozes out of 'N Sync's grasp; Britney: One more time on the "virginity issue"; Paula Jones threatens to go into comedy, art. Plus: Bizkit's Durst says Christina did not go south!

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Topics: Celebrity, Demi Moore, Barbara Walters, Britney Spears,

‘N Sync’s Lance Bass: Stranded at the drive-in, branded a fool?

John Travolta says “Grease 3″ starring ‘N Sync ain’t gonna happen, despite Bass’ recent contention that they’re “definitely going to do” it.

If the bubblegum popsters do make a film, “it won’t be called ‘Grease 3,’” the original big-screen Danny Zuko tells TV Guide Online. “I was told Paramount owns the ‘Grease’ name and they’re not doing that,” an assertion Paramount confirms.

“Grease,” as a word and a concept, “should be left as is,” Travolta opines.

True, it may have groove, it may have meaning, but, says Travolta, “Like ‘American in Paris’ [and] ‘Cabaret,’ ‘Grease’ should be left alone.”

Not like “Battlefield Earth.”

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More bad news for ‘N Sync

“The virginity issue … it’s a personal decision and it reflects how I feel right now about myself. There are so many emotions involved that I would like to be able to wait until I know I’m with the right person and I’m married.”

– Britney Spears, who has a pure thang with ‘N Sync’s Justin Timberlake, on why she’s keeping her legs crossed in the U.K. Daily Star.

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Paula’s got a jones

If you were hoping that, now that Paula Jones has bared it all for Penthouse, she’d slink quietly away into the naked night, I have bad news for you. Paula has big plans — big, big plans — for the future.

No, she’s not trying that phone psychic thing again. And she hasn’t any intention, at the moment, of reviving her stillborn singing career. But she would like to free her artistic soul.

“I used to do some drawing,” Jones told Jane Wallace Thursday on Court TV’s “Crier Today.” “And I thought about maybe taking some art classes because I used to do oil paintings some years ago or maybe take some interior decorating-type classes.”

But even if the Picasso dreams don’t come true, she’s got a backup plan: comedy.

“I would love to do a book deal,” she says. “Maybe an exciting, more like a comedian-type book deal. You know, the real me, because I don’t think I’m boorish at all. Do you think I’m boorish?”

Um … Next question.

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Something to scream about

“We’re being intimate with each other, and he’ll mispronounce my name. He’ll go, ‘I love you, Janie,’ right at the moment you don’t want to be laughing.”

– Jamie Lee Curtis, telling Queen Latifah what it’s like to be married to ever-funny Christopher Guest.

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Bizkit, not limp

Fred Durst, chivalrous?

The Limp Bizkit frontman is defending Christina Aguilera’s rep. She did not, as Eminem has impolitely suggested, give him head, he says. But it wasn’t for lack interest on his part.

“I think she’s a really, really talented woman,” Durst tells the Toronto Sun. “She’s young, and something about her drives me crazy about the way she sings and performs and the presence she has. So I was interested in her. She knows that I didn’t do anything. Whatever her and Em have issues on — that’s their thing.”

Whattaguy.

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More chivalry

“This is not a daytime soap, it’s real life, and Meg and I are real people. The reason for our breakup will remain private, just as anyone out there wants their intimate life to be a private thing. But I won’t stand for any criticism of Jack’s mother!”

– Dennis Quaid defending estranged wife Meg Ryan in Liz Smith’s gossip column.

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Juicy bits

Remember Bruce Willis and Demi Moore’s marriage? Well, forget it. It’s finally officially over. The couple, married in 1987 and separated in 1998, has at last gotten around to filing their divorce papers at the courthouse near Sun Valley, Idaho, where they and their three little girls had a home. Irreconcilable differences, they say, were to blame. According to Hollywoodgossip.com, Moore’s desire to tie the knot with martial arts instructor Oliver Whitcomb provided the impetus for making the split official. Ha-yah!

Crying wolf? At the opening of “Charlie’s Angels” earlier this week, Tom Green and Drew Barrymore told reporters they secretly got married — in Cleveland — and given Green’s history of media fibbage, no one knows whether to believe them or not. Including, it seems, Green’s own publicist. “To be honest with you, I don’t know,” Green’s flack Marleah Leslie told the press. “I was there. I heard them tell people they got married. And I asked them. My answer is I don’t know. They said they were.”

“You play, you pay.” So says Matthew Perry in Us Weekly. But after his bout with pancreatitis last spring, the “Friends” star says, he’s through doing both. “I’ve had my share of, you know, troubles with partying too much and going out too much,” he says. “I really lived life to its fullest and that got me in trouble from time to time.” Now, he says, “I’m back on my feet again and totally fine.” And don’t panic about that frightening skinny look he had in the first episode of this season’s show. “I was still healing,” Perry explains. “I couldn’t eat more than chicken soup. By the second episode, you can see I’m better.” Chicken soup for the fast-livin’ actor’s soul?

I wouldn’t want to get in the middle of this one. Barbara Walters and her fellow “View” stars are tussling with Dr. Laura Schlessinger after Schlessinger called a photo of Babs in a bathrobe used in a newspaper ad “despicable.” “All I can think of is … does she have underwear on? Is this how she got the interviews?” Dr. Laura said on her show, flashing the ad. “I think it’s really despicable.” But Walters’ costars rallied ’round. “You must remember something,” Star Jones said, displaying the radio star’s infamous nudie pix. “You may have a TV show, Miss Thang, but it’s one against five and you don’t go on the attack against our girl. We will get you!” Snap, snap!

- – - – - – - – - – - -

Miss something? Read yesterday’s Nothing Personal.

More Amy Reiter.

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