It's only middle-aged wasteland

Jerry Hall: Pete Townshend's not a creep! Joe Millionaire snorkels suds, sez butler. Plus: Did Brad break Jennifer's toe?

Published January 14, 2003 9:00PM (EST)

The rest of the world may be making crass "Kids Are Alright" and "Fiddle About" jokes at Pete Townshend's expense, but Jerry Hall, for one, believes the Who rocker's declaration that he is "not a pedophile," despite having paid to visit a child-porn Web site.

He did it, he says, "purely to see what was there" while researching his autobiography, in which he'd planned to disclose that he's pretty sure he was sexually abused as a child.

"If I did anything illegal, I did it purely for research," Townshend insisted before Scotland Yard hauled him in for questioning. (So much for "Can't Explain.")

And Hall's ready to back him up. In fact, the ex Mrs. Jagger has issued a statement to that effect.

"Since 1992 I have campaigned for both public and private child welfare foundations both in raising public awareness and funds," Hall told the press. "Pete Townshend is an avid supporter of these causes. In addition he advised me on how to prevent my children from inadvertently gaining access to such sites."

For those of you snickering that he ought to know, Hall has this to say: "Over the course of our friendship we have also discussed his belief that he too was abused as a child. He also spoke about his pending autobiography and the difficulty he had in coming to terms with this aspect of his childhood."

OK, you can all go back to making "Happy Jack" jokes now.

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Blame the twin beds

"And the amazing thing is, we never had an affair."

-- Mary Tyler Moore on her "Dick Van Dyke Show" costar Dick Van Dyke, to a group of junketing reporters covering their PBS production of "The Gin Game."

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The butler did it

The butler always knows -- and if he's the kind of butler who'll go on a reality TV show and appear in front of millions of people, chances are he's the sort of butler who'll blab about it too.

Paul Hogan, televised manservant to "Joe Millionaire" Evan Marriott, has happily been sharing the goods on his faux employer all over town.

"After day 10 of shooting, I thought, 'If this guy's got $50 million, I'm the Queen of England,'" Hogan snarked to the New York Daily News.

On the other hand, he told the paper, "Evan is a decent sort of bloke. He enjoys beer and fast food and likes to talk about football."

In fact -- wine lessons or no wine lessons -- Hogan says Marriott is even more Joe Six-Pack than you might think.

"If he wants to have a beer, he can have a beer," Hogan generously allowed in an interview with TV Guide Online. "And he did have a beer. He drinks quite a bit of it! I didn't mean that derogatorily. He just enjoys his beer."

Warm, watery and flat? Very good, sir.

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Half-mast Harvey?

"Giving Harvey Viagra is like putting a brand-new flagpole on a condemned building."

-- Tim Conway on his old "Carol Burnett Show" costar Harvey Korman, to the Toronto Sun.

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Tootsie trouble

Does someone need to tell Brad Pitt to stop rearranging the furniture in the middle of the night?

Jennifer Aniston's flack has told the Associated Press that her client's injured foot, which caused her to hobble her way up to the stage to collect her People's Choice Award for favorite female TV performer the other night, was on accounta she broke her toe by whacking it on a piece of furniture.

A flair for slapstick even at home, that one.

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Miss something? Read yesterday's Nothing Personal.


By Amy Reiter

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