Berry bonds stretched thin

Halle's marriage threatened by "tantalizing" issues; Anna Nicole is up for "nudeness" if it pays.

Published November 13, 2002 2:38PM (EST)

Berry Bond-like?

Halle Berry's getting a lot of press for her upcoming role as the booty-kickin' Bond babe Jinx in the upcoming Bond flick "Die Another Day." There's now much talk of the character being spun off into her own big-screen spy series.

Berry's fanning the flames, telling E! she'd "do it in a heartbeat," and certainly the rest of us might relish seeing her display her questionable driving skills in the rumored flicks' requisite car-chase scenes.

But the actress is facing conflicts that hit much closer to home in another upcoming project: "Need." In it, Berry will play a high-powered New York therapist who finds out that one of her least stable patients is having an affair with her own husband.

Berry tells Essence magazine that she and her husband, Eric Benet, are going through their own marital troubles these days, though she doesn't really want to get into the "tantalizing" specifics.

Declining to confirm reports that Benet has cheated on her with a string of women and sought treatment for sex addiction a few months back, Berry will say this: "The truth is that during the period of my most significant public success -- the Academy Awards -- my private life faced a staggering crisis. All romantic relationships suffer crises; no woman can claim otherwise ... All our crises are heartbreaking."

Benet, she says, is in therapy now, as is she.

Let's just hope he's not having an affair with his therapist's spouse (though that would be a tantalizing specific).

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You mean he's not a virgin?

"Even when he lost his virginity, he wasn't this happy."

-- Matt Damon on buddy Ben Affleck's blissful state now that he and Jennifer Lopez are engaged, on "Extra."

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Nudeness for sale

Anna Nicole Smith is sad that she hasn't been able to show us all more of her ample skin in her reality TV show.

"I am disappointed that there has been no nudeness [on "The Anna Nicole Smith Show"] -- I don't mind being nude," she has announced to the British magazine Heat.

In fact, she quite likes it, particularly if the epidermal display nets her a little more of the green stuff.

"I don't think I am being exploited at all," she says. "And if I am, so what? At least I'm being paid for it."

Hardly a new business plan for the buxom widow.

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Who's going to tell Tiffany?

"I say to him, when you're in the wheelchair, I'm gonna get you a nice cashmere blanket and we're gonna go straight to Tiffany -- darling -- you're going to be very well looked after."

-- Catherine Zeta-Jones revealing her pledge to dote on her husband, Michael Douglas, in his impending dotage, to the London Express.

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Juicy bits

If Michael Jackson can do it, why not Guy Ritchie? Madonna's hubs -- who, she says, is "very deep" and obsessed with quantum physics -- is addressing the students at venerable Oxford University. The director will discuss directing and his plans for the future -- and will take questions "for as long as he enjoys it," the Oxford Union president tells Peoplenews.com. You'll notice he didn't say anything about the students enjoying it.

Size 1 diapers ... stat! "ER" star Noah Wyle is a papa. He and his wife, Tracy, ushered their firstborn son, Owen Strausser Wyle, into the world on Saturday. (Strausser, a family name, is also Noah's middle name, as it happens.) "The three are home, healthy and very, very happy," his publicist, Eddie Michaels, told the press. Guess Wyle spends enough time in the hospital as it is.

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Miss something? Read yesterday's Nothing Personal.


By Amy Reiter

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