She'd rob a store to smoke a Camel?

Is a nic fit behind Winona's alleged shoplifting? Underpants talk from Ethan Hawke, Jack Black; 'N Sync gets cranky; Pink Floyd's Gilmour gives away millions.

Published January 11, 2002 5:04PM (EST)

Blame the butts?

Winona Ryder made an appearance in court Thursday for that nasty alleged shoplifting escapade at Saks last month (security cameras supposedly nabbed her ripping the electronic anti-theft tags off $5,000 worth of merchandise and shoving it into her bag). And while the case is still being investigated, if a friend of Ryder is to be believed, she's already got her defense in order.

A nic fit.

"Winona had already purchased some things in the store," Ryder's buddy told E! TV the other day. "And she also had some things she was considering buying when she went out of the store for a smoke. That's what happened. She was going to pay for the items."

How does that explain the whole anti-theft-tag rippage accusation? Well, um, it doesn't, I suppose. But neither does Ryder's lawyer's explanation that his client was just carrying the items between store departments when she found herself handcuffed and hauled off to jail.

What a drag.

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Takes one to know one

"I'm so tired of chicks with blond hair with big boobs. I'm just over it."

-- Jenny McCarthy poking fun at Pamela Anderson (and herself) at the American Music Awards.

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I see London, I see France ...

Who wears the pants in Ethan Hawke and Frank Whaley's relationship? Depends on how you look at it.

Whaley, who directs and costars with Hawke in "The Jimmy Show," which debuts tonight at the Sundance Festival, says he and Hawke often found themselves jockeying for position while filming the indie flick.

Hawke plays a hapless stand-up comedian who's always asking Whaley's character for advice. But in real life, Whaley tells celebrity researcher Baird Jones, "Ethan is the exact opposite, always wise beyond his years, giving me this earnest fatherly advice like he is my dad. He constantly calls me son even though he is less than one year older than me."

Sometimes, however, Hawke takes the father routine a tad too far. "Yesterday, he was lecturing me that I should be careful to not wear my underwear two days in a row," Whaley says. "I said, 'Give it a break, Ethan ... Are you telling me you don't ever wear your underwear two days in a row?' and he gives me this holier than thou look and says, 'That would not be relevant to me.' And I said, 'And why would that be, oh sage one?' And Ethan said, 'I never wear underwear; I find it confining.'

"So for 'The Jimmy Show' I wrote a part for Ethan where he is so stupid that he had to ask my advice on how to tie his shoes, on everything; that was my revenge."

And if that wasn't payback enough, telling us about his undie-free lifestyle ought to do the trick ...

Don't tell Ethan Hawke

"There were two pairs and a stunt pair. I always wore the same ones, but they cleaned them every day. Don't worry about that."

-- Jack Black on the rigors of his role in "Orange County," in which he spends most of his time parading around in his underwear, on TV Guide Online.

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Send out the clones

'N Sync 'n "Star Wars"? Not anymore.

Joey Fatone has told a Florida radio show that he and his fellow band members are no longer planning to get themselves blown up in "Star Wars: Attack of the Clones." In fact, they won't be in the film at all.

"I'm going to make it officially known they dropped it because people made a big deal about it," Fatone told listeners tuned in to the Carson Radio Show on Florida station 93.3 FLZ. "We're not going to be in it and I'm not going to comment on it anymore."

Sheesh. Someone's 'n a bad mood ...

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Taking things a bit too personally

"I'm very hurt. They're a very cute couple, very nice, and were meant to be together."

-- Charlotte Richards, owner of the Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas, where Michael and Juanita Jordan were married in 1989, on the couple's impending divorce, in the New York Post.

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Money, it's a gas

We may all be just another brick in the wall, but some bricks are more supportive than others.

Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour has donated the proceeds from the sale of his London home -- more than $6 million -- to the homeless.

"I don't need the money and I just thought it would be a good thing to do," the musician, who owns two other houses, told the U.K. Sunday Telegraph. "I've had that house for nearly 20 years. It's made a fat profit and I've scarcely used it for the last six or seven years."

Gilmour sold the house, which he originally bought for $430,000, to Earl Spencer, Princess Di's brother, for a reported $6.48 million, all of which will be donated to his pet charity, Crisis.

"You collect Ferraris and then you've got to collect people to look after your Ferraris, and you've got to collect buildings to house the Ferraris," he told the paper. "Life gets very complicated. And eventually, at least in my case, you think 'I don't need this stuff.' And suddenly life gets simpler."

So much for comfortably numb ...

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Miss something? Read yesterday's Nothing Personal.


By Amy Reiter

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