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Wednesday, Feb 27, 2002 5:16 PM UTC

Crowe gets his knickers in a twist

Actor blows his top when awards speech is edited; Sting says he shagged Russell instead of a sheep; Jacqueline Bissett on "Goodthighs." Plus: Tommy Lee on pool tragedy -- "I wasn't responsible."

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Topics: Celebrity,

Russell Crowe might wanna lay off the lager for a while. One can only hope that the numerous cans of Victoria Bitter he’s reported to have tossed back at Sunday night’s BAFTA awards had something to do with his outrageous behavior at the show’s post-show dinner.

According to the U.K. Sun, Crowe completely lost his spit when he found out that the BBC, which televised the event, had trimmed a poem out of his best actor acceptance speech in editing the show for its delayed broadcast.

The actor is said to have had two of his bodyguards usher the show’s director, Malcolm Gerrie, into a side room at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel, where Crowe was waiting to confront him.

After grilling Gerrie about his credentials, Crowe blew his stack.

“I don’t give a f*** who you are,” he reportedly barked, backing the director against a wall. “Who on earth had the f***ing audacity to take out the best actor’s poem? You f***ing piece of sh**, I’ll make sure you never work in Hollywood.”

Then he kicked over a few chairs and stomped out, leaving Gerrie “very shaken,” witnesses told the tabloid, though apparently willing to let the matter drop.

“We’re not commenting on the details of what happened,” a spokesman for Gerrie’s production company, Initial Productions, told BBC News. “All we’re saying is that Russell Crowe was abusive and behaved very unreasonably. We told people accepting that they must keep their speeches to a minimum because we were conscious of the time constraints.”

Crowe’s lucky. If Gerrie were the litigious type, the actor’d be in a beautiful bind.

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At least Sting’s on his side

“I met him in Australia and it was either shag the sheep or shag Russell, so I chose Russell.”

– Sting, on the origin of his friendship with Russell Crowe, in the U.K. Mirror.

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Tommy Lee’s pool of sorrow

Tommy Lee would rather you not blame him for the death of the 4-year-old boy who drowned in his swimming pool last year. He’s not blaming himself.

“I wasn’t responsible for that. I wasn’t the only adult here. There were many adults here,” he tells “Access Hollywood.” “There was a lifeguard here. It was a little kid pool party for my son. I was watching my kids.”

Which doesn’t mean he’s not, you know, kind of upset about the whole thing.

“Every day I walk out there and I look and I get goose bumps,” says the rocker, who is being sued for wrongful death by the boy’s parents.

Things got so eerie, he took certain spiritual measures.

“We drained the pool. We blessed the new waters,” he said. “My sons were part of it. I feel we did what we had to do to sort of move on.”

Goose bumps aside.

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Thighs and kisses

Take heed, Halle Berry. Jacqueline Bisset would have you know: Once a Bond girl, always a Bond girl.

“After I made ‘Casino Royale,’ my fans for years would come up to me and ask me to sign ‘Giovanna Goodthighs, Kiss Kiss,’” Bisset told celebrity researcher Baird Jones the other night at the premiere of Showtime’s “Sleepy Time Girl,” which debuts March 29. “And I would gamely take up the pen and give it a try — and then get all red-faced halfway through and say, ‘I’m sorry, I just can’t do this.’

“Those Bond girl names they really are memorable,” Bisset continues. “Believe me, I’ve had to live with Giovanna Goodthighs, so I know all too well.”

So Berry had better get used to her Bond-given “Jinx” handle. Though it sure beats “Halle on Wheels.”

- – - – - – - – - – - -

Miss something? Read yesterday’s Nothing Personal.

More Amy Reiter.

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