Britney goes Limp

Rocker Durst is "like WHOA!!" over pop goddess; Sandra Bullock showers Hugh Grant with condoms -- and chocolates. Plus: Don't, repeat, do not claim you slept with Tom Cruise (unless it's true).

Published January 17, 2003 9:00PM (EST)

Has Britney Spears traded in her hard-bodied boy-bander for a Limp Bizkit?

It may well be.

Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst is apparently feeling mighty soft on Justin Timberlake's ex, though whether or not they're officially coupling is still open to debate.

In a posting last week on his official Web site, Durst denied professional involvement with Spears -- "I did not sing with her, okay?" -- but opened the door to rumors that some other, deeper involvement might be happenin' between them.

"I really like her and that's about all I should say," he wrote. "She's a sweet, amazing girl and I'm happy to know her right now."

Two days later, Durst followed up with another Spears-related message to fans, which in his excitement he posted not once but twice.

"All this stuff about Britney and me is everywhere. It's like WHOA!!" Durst exclaimed, before going on the defensive. "Anybody out there who has a serious problem with my feelings for Britney should just chill and worry about your own feelings for a minute. You can't help what happens in life because everything happens for a reason. I believe that. I am a good judge of character and so is she."

Then he gets a little confused -- and confusing -- on the topic of the belly-baring pop princess. And downright mushy, too.

"It just happens to be a person that I would have thought could make me feel this way. And believe that I have never felt this way, so there," he writes, in the epistolary equivalent of sticking out his tongue. "If you think I'm going soft then you go ahead and think it."

OK, we will.

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Another odd couple?

"I feel she has a crush on me because she's so obsessed about talking about me."

-- Christina Aguilera on Kelly Osbourne, who is constantly dissing her in interviews, to the London Daily Star.

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Candies, rubbers and thou

Speaking of surprising celebrity crushes ...

Hugh Grant has been waxing wistful about his "Two Weeks Notice" costar and apparent good buddy Sandra Bullock. As he sees it, she's a lot like his ex, Liz Hurley.

"She's incredibly charming. She's got a touch of what my ex-girlfriend has -- this delusion they can do everything," Grant tells Britain's Now magazine. "If I said my tooth hurts, they'd say, 'I can fix that' and try and do it themselves."

Grant also admires Bullock's "puerile sense of humor" -- which the actor, who reportedly presented Bullock with a Kama Sutra-inspired chess set when they were finished filming, clearly shares -- and maternal concern for his health.

Every time he went away for the weekend during filming, he says, "She gave me goody bags ... English chocolates and condoms -- thousands of them."

Thousands of them? Sounds more like she was trying to kill him!

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Um ... what are her dogs doing in the shower?

"I was not going to sing for anybody besides my dogs when I'm in the shower."

-- Renée Zellweger, on her surprise at being tapped to play Roxie Hart in the big-screen version of "Chicago," to Ananova.com.

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Juicy bits

Lesson of the day: You can't go around saying you had a gay affair with Tom Cruise and get away with it -- especially if you didn't. The actor has scored himself a win in a $10 million lawsuit against Chad Slater (aka Kyle Bradford), a porn star who allegedly told the French magazine Actustar that he and Cruise had a torrid affair, before reversing course and declaring that the two had actually never met, the Associated Press reports. Slater had defaulted on a previous Cruise-instigated lawsuit, indicating that he did not have the money to defend himself. Cruise's attorneys say they "don't have any idea" whether any dough will actually be forthcoming from Slater, but hope they've made their point that "demeaning Mr. Cruise will not be a successful endeavor." At least if you want to hold onto your pocket change.

Michael Jackson and Barry Gibb were not among the 150 mourners -- who included Eric Clapton, Randy Newman and Harry Casey of K.C, and the Sunshine Band -- who attended Bee Gee Maurice Gibb's private funeral the other day. But they did show their respects in their own special way. According to the New York Post, Jackson and elder brother Gibb, who a family spokesman said was "too distraught to go to the funeral," had their own private audience with Maurice's coffin on Wednesday.

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Sorry, madam

You'd think I'd know the difference between an A-list actress and a lady pimp, but clearly you'd be wrong. In yesterday's column, I mistakenly attributed a quote about the Heidi Fleiss biopic "Pay the Girl" to Nicole Kidman, who is rumored to be in talks to star in the flick. It was actually Fleiss, not Kidman, who characterized the film, in an interview with Variety, as "'Pretty Woman,' but with the visual energy and excess of 'Scarface.'" Can't say the woman doesn't know how to push her product ...

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Miss something? Read yesterday's Nothing Personal.


By Amy Reiter

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Related Topics ------------------------------------------

Britney Spears Michael Jackson Tom Cruise