Inflation, smoking, dating and debriefings

Ginger Spice: "I'll have bigger breasts than all of you"; Ms. Ray of Light preaches to the lithe one; the spirits speak: More young stuff for the prez in 2000. Plus: Who wears the panties in the family? David Beckham and Tim Robbins bare all!

Published January 8, 2000 5:00PM (EST)

There was no Nothing Personal on Monday this week because, well, I was in denial about my vacation ending. But then things got right breast -- I mean back -- to normal on Tuesday. A psychic sex scandal got hearts racing around the White House on Thursday, and by Friday certain revelations from certain male celebrities regarding their wearing of certain women's undergarments had tongues a waggin' all across the land.

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Tuesday: "Boobs of the century"

I'm sure you'll want to shed a tear for Geri Halliwell, who recently shared in the U.K.'s FHM magazine that she was "very under-developed as a girl -- flat as a pancake ... It even got to the point where my nickname was 'bald.'" The erstwhile Ginger Spice said she'd screw up her strength and tell her shapelier, hairier friends, "You wait and see, I'll have bigger breasts than all of you."

Rather than rely on the hands of time to work their magic, Halliwell might have learned a thing or two about inadequacy compensation from Elizabeth Hurley, who's just gone public with her own childhood struggles with a slack booty. The supermodel/actress tells Elle she used to stuff Kleenex in her jeans for a rounder-rumped look.

Read the entire Nothing Personal column for Tuesday, Jan. 4.

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Wednesday: "Madonna saves Gwyneth from evil drug doom!"

This ought to put a lid on those Grace Kelly comparisons once and for all: Gwyneth Paltrow's idol is ... Madonna. In fact, the lithe actress says she owes her smoke-free lifestyle to Ms. Ray of Light. After Gwynnie's dad, "St. Elsewhere" director Bruce Paltrow, caught her puffing away at age 12, she tells Entertainment Weekly Online, he called in a few lung-saving favors.

"Leo Penn, Sean Penn's father, was directing some episodes of 'St. Elsewhere' for my father," explains Paltrow. "So he asked Leo Penn to ask Sean Penn to ask Madonna if she would write me a letter saying that she didn't smoke. So I have this letter from Madonna saying, 'Don't smoke, I don't smoke.'" Now Gwyneth doesn't either -- and her lungs are like a virgin.

Read the entire Nothing Personal column for Wednesday, Jan. 5.

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Thursday: "Psychic hot tip: Mariah and Bill in Y2K"

Look, I'm as skeptical about psychic phenomena as the next snarky columnist, but even I have to admit that there are things -- Jesse Helms' political success, for instance, or Daryl Hannah's appeal -- that can't be explained with mere logic.

So when I heard that Elizabeth Joyce, the clairvoyant who, back in the summer of '97, predicted that "a dark-haired girl named Veronica will upset the White House January 20, an angry blond will bring forth the truth, it will be later verified and Clinton will be impeached in the fall months of '98" was foreseeing a fresh batch of Clinton scandals in Y2K, I couldn't help but give her a ring. (My aura made me do it.)

While leafing through a supermarket tabloid, Joyce told me, she suddenly perceived that it'd be splitsville for Bill and Hillary this year, and that the president would begin dating "young women -- not that he has stopped."

But not just any women: Mariah Carey or Cher were the babes who sprung into Joyce's consciousness. "I think he's going to go after people in the music business, and I felt those two names," she said. "I have no idea why."

Read the entire Nothing Personal column for Thursday, Jan. 6.

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Friday: "Celebrity debriefing"

No sooner did Posh Spice let slip that her soccer star husband, David Beckham, likes to borrow her undies than another famous fellow threw his thong in the ring.

Asked, in an all-too-frank chat on E! Online on Wednesday, whether he prefers boxers, briefs or thongs, Tim Robbins confessed, "I own all three."

Monica Lewinsky, what hath thou wrought?

Read the entire Nothing Personal column for Friday, Jan. 7.


By Amy Reiter

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