Whitney and Bobby: Smashing couple?

Hotel denies Houston and Brown wrecking report; Al Gore demands canned ham from Letterman. Plus: Matt Damon golfs, dodges gunfire!

Published April 13, 2001 4:05PM (EDT)

Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown, smeared?

The U.K. Sun reported Thursday that the troubled duo has been banned from the Hotel Bel-Air in California for causing approximately $30,000 in damage to their hotel room during a three-hour (!) brawl.

Sources reportedly told the paper that the trouble started when Whitney tried to keep Bobby from continuing a bev-binge he'd begun by tossing back more than a few at the hotel bar.

When Bobby's brother Tommy got in on the action and tried to calm Bobby down, one source told the tab, "all hell broke loose. Bobby and Tommy started throwing punches at each other." The alleged damage? Broken doors, a smashed crystal table and a trampled 27-inch TV set.

But a hotel spokesman insists nothing of the sort ever happened. In fact, he said in a British radio interview, the couple weren't even hotel guests on the night in question.

Didn't they almost have it all ... wrong?

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Man who speaks with porked tongue

"[I did 'Letterman'] because I was promised a canned ham, but I'm still waiting for it ... I've been a fan for a long time. I think that it's a rite of passage for a candidate to appear on his show. That and the canned ham were the two reasons why I went on. I would like to say, for a second time, that I am still waiting for it."

-- Former Veep Al Gore on why he agreed to appear on David Letterman's "Late Show" during the presidential campaign, in TV Guide.

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Nothing like a rolling stone

How many roads must a man walk down, before people start calling him a bad dad?

The answer, my friend, is blowing through the press. And Carol Dennis, the singer who a new unauthorized biography reveals was married to Bob Dylan for six years in the late '80s and early '90s and with whom the singer had a "secret" daughter, now 15, is none too happy about it.

"Bob and I made a choice to keep our marriage a private matter for a simple reason -- to give our daughter a normal childhood," Dennis told the press this week, adding that their daughter, Desiree Gabrielle Dennis-Dylan, opted to take her father's last name two years ago.

What's more, Dennis says, biographer Howard Sounes has got a lot of nerve implying the folk-singing legend was a shame-faced, absentee pops.

"To portray Bob as 'hiding his daughter' is just malicious and ridiculous," she said. "That is something he would never do. Bob has been a wonderful, active father to Desiree."

So don't be calling Mr. Rainy Day Woman a fair-weather friend.

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Juicy bits

You can call her "Fraulein Forehand" or Andre Agassi's girlfriend. But whatever you do, don't call Steffi Graf "Steffi." She is just so over that girlish nickname and would very much rather you called her "Stefanie" from now on. "I like the name better," the erstwhile tennis pro tells the German paper Handelsblatt. In other words, "Ich bin Stefanie ... got that?"

Good shelter hunting: Matt Damon and his golfing partner were forced to dive for cover when gunshots rang out in the middle of their game at a Las Vegas golf course, the Las Vegas Review Journal reports. Damon and his buddy reportedly crouched in a batch of bushes until the scary scene blew over and the police hit the links in search of the culprits. No evidence was found, and the source of the gunfire remains a mystery, but rest assured that's the last time Damon and his friend go golfing on a Grassy Knoll.

'Nother pop star, 'Nother novel. Justin Timberlake has reportedly snagged a seven-figure deal to write a novel, just like his old lady, Britney Spears. The title of the 'NSyncer's tome? "Crossover Dribble." 'Ncredible, but true.

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Miss something? Read yesterday's Nothing Personal.


By Amy Reiter

MORE FROM Amy Reiter


Related Topics ------------------------------------------

Al Gore Celebrity Whitney Houston