The strange tale of Elizabeth Hurley and her baby daddy, Stephen Bing, just got a little weirder.
The latest peculiar plot twist? Bing, the Hollywood writer/producer who once famously denied that he was the baby's father -- until DNA proved that he was -- offers to cough up about $158,000 a year in child support until little Damian reaches age 18. And Hurley tells him to shove it.
"I have always made it perfectly clear to Stephen Bing, the father of my son Damian, that I don't want any financial help from him whatsoever," Hurley told the press. "I know that 100,000 pounds a year is an enormous sum of money to Mr. Bing and I fully appreciate his generosity toward his son. However, my position remains the same. The money is not wanted or welcome. Damian and I are managing very well by ourselves."
Bing's "generous provision for his son," as his lawyer put it, was made after he initiated legal proceedings in the U.K. to settle on just how much financial support he might owe little Damian. More than one British tabloid has suggested that Bing, worth about $400 million, may have had to fork over a lot more if the support case had been seen before a court in California, where he lives.
"It appears that one cannot stop someone trying to give you money," Hurley said, adding that she had opposed the legal proceedings from the get-go. "Fortunately one can refuse to accept it. This I have done."
But Bing's people aren't so sure about that last part. His spokeswoman has told the Associated Press that Hurley hasn't the right to turn down the cash, and that it would be put into trust for little Damian.
So it looks as if the tussled-over tyke may have a little Bing bling-bling one of these days after all ...
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Babies who are less in dispute ...
Baby boom in the city?
Benjamin Bratt and his recent bride Talisa Soto have announced the birth of their brand-new baby daughter, born sometime in the last couple of weeks, somewhere in New York. The couple was clearer about the baby's name, Sophia Rosalinda Bratt, and birth weight, 7 pounds.
Meanwhile, on Monday, also in New York City, "Sex and the City" star Cynthia Nixon made like Sarah Jessica Parker and gave birth to a bouncing baby boy, Charles Ezekiel Mozes, her second child with her partner, photographer and professor Danny Mozes. The baby weighed in at 7 pounds, 10 ounces.
The next celebrity mommy? Possibly Jennifer Aniston, who recently told Entertainment Weekly that she's feeling too broody to continue with "Friends" for another season.
"In my mind I'm done," Aniston said. "I want to start my family."
Manolo! Start crocheting the stiletto booties now.
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Foreign face off
"Why must we use their faces in our advertisements? Aren't our own people handsome enough?"
-- Zainuddin Maidin, Malaysia's deputy information minister, explaining to the Malaysian national news agency Bernama that he banned a series of Toyota ads featuring Brad Pitt's Caucasian mug because they were an "insult to Asians."
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Mopin' Moby strikes again
Poor Moby really seems to be having a hard time getting his confidence back after that Boston attack.
Just the other day, he decided to change hotels in Los Angeles in order to avoid any possible confrontation with bunches of brutes after learning that Eminem was planning to host a party at the hotel.
"In the interest of personal security and whatnot I've moved hotels, just to be on the safe side," Moby shared on his Web site. "I really don't want to encounter 20 drunk Eminem friends/well-wishers at 2am in the morning as I'm heading out for a stroll around the neighbourhood."
"Call me paranoid, call me a woosie," he wrote, "but I'd rather err on the side of nonconfrontationalism."
Awwwww. Someone give this paranoid woosie a hug.
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