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Kissing up without the kiss

Gore spares Oprah the smooch, then wants her thumbs up; no barf on Jonathan Lipnicki, nor poop on Madonna's sometime beau. Plus: Charlie's Angels admit to false cheese cutting.

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By Amy Reiter

Oct. 31, 2000 | Does Al Gore only have lips for Tipper?

The veep tells TV Guide he declined to kiss Oprah Winfrey during his recent appearance on her show out of consideration for his host's feelings.

"Sometimes if a woman is a well-known professional," he says, "it's kind of a sign of respect not to automatically kiss."

But he's not above kissing Oprah's metaphorical ring. In response to a recent study that determined that 14 percent of Americans would be more likely to vote for an Oprah-backed presidential candidate, Gore muses that he doesn't think Oprah would render an endorsement.

However, he quips, "Just in case she might, I'd like to take this opportunity to say, 'Oprah, I would like to have your endorsement.'"

The Oprah Candidate?

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He did it their way

"He always thought that song was self-serving and self-indulgent. He didn't like it. That song stuck and he couldn't get it off his shoe."

-- Tina Sinatra, revealing her father Frank's true feelings about "My Way."

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So famous they could puke

Fame has its drawbacks. Just ask Jonathan Lipnicki.

After the 10-year-old actor hit it big in "Jerry Maguire" and "Stuart Little," he tells New York Newsday, people used to follow him around.

"They thought I had a cellphone in my backpack and stuff," he says. "And I was in kindergarten."

But little Lipnicki, who's about to hit screens again in "The Little Vampire," says his celebrity tribulations are nothing compared to those boy-band guys'.

"I've heard when girls meet 'N Sync and the Backstreet Boys, they throw up on them and faint," he says. "I wouldn't want to get thrown up on."

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Take it up with 'N Sync, Cuba

"Other actors get recognized and people shout their names, like 'Hey, Eddie' or 'What's up, Wesley?' But wherever I go, people take one look at me and scream, 'Show me the money.'"

-- Cuba Gooding Jr. on why the fame game's been harder on him than it has on other people.

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And now, back to bodily functions

Papa don't preach ... and he apparently don't change diapers either.

Guy Ritchie is apparently all swagger when it comes to fatherhood, telling the U.K. Mirror he steers clear of Madonna when she nurses their baby son, Rocco -- and he refuses to lend a hand on the changing table, too.

"At this stage of the game, they don't do much but eat, sleep and poo -- so I don't have much to do with any of that," he says.

What else doesn't he have much to do with? Knot tying, for starters. "Marriage? We'll have to wait and see," he says.

Then again, he offers, he does "want to work with the missus and in 10 years, I'll still be working with the missus."

And they say romance is dead.

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Gobsmack the queen

"I'm gobsmacked, but it appeals to my sense of humor."

-- Oasis label founder Alan McGee on discovering that Queen Elizabeth has invested in his record company, Poptones, which backs Mexican Elvis impersonator El Vez among other edgy artists.

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She who smelt it

Who let one?

Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu, loudly and often, apparently. But the angels Charlie sent were only kidding. Really.

Diaz tells Britain's FHM magazine that things got a little "childish" on the "Charlie's Angels" set during filming.

"I love toilet humor -- that's why I love the English sense of humor," Diaz shares. "We just humored ourselves during the making of the movie, being very sophomoric and immature and childish."

That's where the noises came in. "Me and Drew and Lucy would go off on these tangents of stupidity," says the actress. "We'd just be entertaining ourselves. We were always just making disgusting fart noises. We were trying to find out who could make the foulest noises."

Um ... 'N Sync's fans?

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Miss something? Read yesterday's Nothing Personal.

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About the writer
Amy Reiter is a senior writer for Salon People. For more columns by Amy Reiter, visit her column archive.

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