True, Lennox Lewis does not have a wife or children for Mike Tyson to snack on. And yes, he is rarely seen out on the town with a woman. And OK, OK, he does live with his mother and own a pet poodle. But -- although the bell has long since rung on all those worn-out stereotypes -- the world heavyweight champ would nevertheless like to put certain rumors down for the count.
"I am definitely, definitely not gay and never have been," he tells London's Daily Telegraph. "I love women."
Although not, perhaps, nearly so much as he loves himself.
Sometimes, in the privacy of his own home, he tells the paper, he likes to stand naked in front of the mirror and admire his own impressive physique. "And I thank the Lord," he says. "I thank God for what he has given me."
Heck, even his boxing scars don't hamper his self-admiration. "I looked at myself and thought, 'Sheesh! Now I'm not perfect anymore.' But, you know, what I am saying? Two little scars or $10 million? Heh heh. Who cares?"
So who doesn't he love? Mike Tyson, not surprisingly, whom he calls "a misfit in the sport of boxing."
"Maybe Tyson's next fight should be on the Food Network if he wants to eat things and eat people's kids," he says. "Before Mike Tyson eats my children, he is going to have to eat my left and my right."
He could eat his shorts. Lewis tells the paper that "one of the very first things" he's going to do when he retires from the ring "is launch my own, new underwear range."
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Not that she hasn't tried
"I can't make much more fun of myself than this."
-- Carmen Electra on her role in "Scary Movie," in which she runs around nearly nekkid and loses a breast implant to a killer's knife.
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My son's name is ...
Coming soon to a record store near you: the Marshall Mathers' Mother's LP?
Could very well happen. Q online reports that Eminem's mom, Debbie Mathers-Briggs, is fixing to draft off her son's success in the music biz. She's even laid down her first rap track, called "Why Are You Doing Me Like You Are?" which I'm guessing is a response to the myriad disses Eminem has launched her way. (Just in case that slander suit she's brought against him doesn't pan out.)
Is it any good? Her own mother, at least, thinks so. "I really hope it's a success for her," Eminem's grandma, Betty Kresin, tells the U.K. music site. "She really needs to make some money because Eminem gives her nothing."
Nothing but notoriety, that is.
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Juicy bits
Should Ginger Spice have been called Garlic Spice? Sporty Spice Mel C has seen fit to tell the world that her ex-bandmate Geri Halliwell had a touch of the halitosis -- and that the band members didn't quite know how to break it to her. "I would normally tell people if they had smelly breath, especially if I were close enough," she recently told a radio interviewer. "Whenever that occasion arose with one of the members of the band, we used to say, 'Does anyone want some chewie?'" After all, said Sporty, "We have all been there sometimes, like when we had a bit of garlic the night before." So kind of her to share.
Puff Daddy might want to get a pied-`-terre close to the courthouse. He's just been slapped with yet another lawsuit. According to the New York Daily News, 18-year-old Danyella (Sunshine) Rogers is suing Puffy, Lil' Kim, Lil' Cease and Atlantic Records for $200 million. She claims they used an X-rated phone conversation she had with Lil' Cease on his track "Play Around" without her consent, causing her mental strain, humiliation and damage to her reputation, social standing and good name. Well, if all else fails, she can always go into the handbag biz.
Speaking of whom ... a Norwegian woman whose biggest claim to fame is a resemblance to Monica Lewinsky has landed her own TV show. Ingeborg Heldal, a 27-year-old teacher, apparently became a national icon when she was greeted by President Clinton during his visit to Oslo last November. Footage of the meeting was repeatedly broadcast 'round Norway. "It was the setting and the composition of the pictures that triggered the connection with Monica Lewinsky -- I don't feel much like her," Heldal told Reuters. Do you suppose the president would confirm that?
Now is the time on "Sprockets" when we run for our lives. Imagine Entertainment, the production company behind the dead film "Dieter," announced last week that it would join Universal Pictures in suing Mike Myers for dropping out of the film based on "Sprockets." But Myers told a crowd in Toronto that what's got him really steamed isn't so much the mounting lawsuits: it's that Universal gave his home address to a "thug" to serve him with a summons, reports the Toronto Sun. After showing up in his driveway and chasing the comedian and his wife, Robin, into their house, the server shouted into the intercom, "I know Mike Myers lives here!" No way? Way.
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