"I did inhale!"

Michael Douglas on why he will never be president. Plus: "Idol" judge Paula Abdul feels Simon's wrath and Kidman hits the bubbly.

Published February 26, 2003 5:01PM (EST)

One actor America will never see making a play for the White House: Michael Douglas.

"People always ask me," Douglas, who played the POTUS in "The American President," tells the upcoming issue of Details magazine. "I don't think so."

It's a simple matter of privacy ... and keeping some of the more lurid details of his past out of the newspapers.

"I don't want to have to deal with everybody's curiosity about my private life," he says. "I did inhale."

But it's not just the tokage that could come back from the '60s to haunt him in a presidential race: It's the clothing, too.

"I lived in a commune in college," Douglas says of his hippie years. "This was Santa Barbara in the '60s. There were poets, painters, artists, musicians. It had a Renaissance-dress feel to it. We had wine stomps and a queen of the May. I wore big, long-sleeved Renaissance shirts."

Let the jousting begin.

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A bit of bubbly to strengthen the knees

"I always make sure I have a glass of champagne when I am getting ready to put a dampener on the stress."

-- Nicole Kidman on her penchant for taking a little nip to quiet her nerves before award ceremonies, backstage at the BAFTA awards, where she was named best actress.

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Nothing to sniff at

And the new face of Estée Lauder is ... Andre Agassi?

According to Vogue.com the chrome-domed tennis pro has signed a multimillion-dollar deal to be the spokesman for a new scent from Aramis and Estée Lauder's Designer Fragrances.

There is more than money involved. In exchange for Agassi's spokes-services, Estée Lauder will reportedly become the chief corporate sponsor for the Andre Agassi Charitable Foundation for underprivileged children.

I don't know about the cologne, but the deal smells sorta sweet.

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Shizzle my nizzle, Ranger

"I didn't want to do the whole, you know, 'Hi ho, Silver, away!' So I said, 'Hi yo, Silver!' roughly."

-- Young actor Chad Michael Murray on the modifications he made to play the title role in a new TV movie version of "The Lone Ranger," to the Associated Press.

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Juicy bits

Forget the fight for top talent honors. The real fight on "American Idol" these days may be the nasty battle brewing between "American Idol" judges Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul.

Abdul apparently was offended in a big way by Cowell's on-air declaration that one unfortunate contestant, Vanessa Olivarez, might want to think about taking off a few spare pounds. She even went off about his brash comments during a recent appearance on "Entertainment Tonight."

But callous Cowell is shrugging the whole thing off as Paula's problem.

"Obviously, it's bothering Paula to be on our show," he recently sniffed to TV Guide Online. "She should go on a show where you lie that everyone looks perfect, sounds perfect and can get a record deal. The show is supposed to be about the real world. And if I think someone is overweight, I tell them!"

Such a sweetheart, that guy.

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Miss something? Read yesterday's Nothing Personal.


By Amy Reiter

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