Nipplegate trickles down Fetish shop pondering law suit. Says Janet Jackson’s rip-off-her-top incident makes its clothing look flimsy

DOUG CAMILLI The Gazette

Tuesday, February 10, 2004

Interesting competition for the Wonder Woman role in the new Warner Bros. movie: Sarah Michelle Gellar is the name we keep hearing for this gig, but now there’s a report Charisma Carpenter, star of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer spinoff series Angel, is a strong contender for the job. Also mentioned: Sandra Bullock and Ashley Scott of the series Dark Angel. Joel Silver produces. I’ll keep you posted.

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Everybody, but everybody, is making sure they get their 15 seconds of publicity out of the Janet Jackson business. Now DeMask, the New York fetish shop that sold her that outfit, is trying to figure out whether or not to sue anybody. Their beef is the rip-off-her-top stunt makes it look as if their gear is flimsy.

Jackson paid about $300 for the outfit, which one columnist said made her look like "a fascist armadillo." Anyway, a woman named Sam Hill, who manages the shop, says the outfit must have been altered to tear away, because it’s not normally anything like that flimsy.

"They took off the studs that kept the cup in place and replaced them with snaps so the top could just come off," she said.

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The last word on Jackson comes from, of all people, pornographer Larry Flynt: "Should this be the most evil thing your children see, then they’ll be fine."

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Oh shut up: Jim Carrey tells Playboy he has given up nearly every luxury and is living like a Buddhist monk:

"I don’t eat wheat. I don’t eat dairy. I don’t smoke cigarettes. I don’t smoke pot. All these things I’ve enjoyed. I live very sparingly. ... I’m always asking, ’What am I going to give up next?’ "

Luckily for him, so far his answer has not been "my private jet." Like most Buddhist monks, he has a plane, and he uses it because it’s "an incredible luxury (which) saves me so much stress because I travel so much ... not having to deal with the airports and the paparazzi. It’s a worthwhile investment in my peace of mind."

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Write if you get work: Penélope Cruz is opening a fashion boutique in Madrid.

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Catherine Zeta-Jones fired her agent last week because she’s madly jealous of Nicole Kidman’s career, according to the New York Post.

Lots of people who know about this stuff were surprised Thursday when Z.Jo ditched George Freeman of the William Morris agency and signed with Bryan Lourd of Creative Artists Agency. The buzz is Michael Douglas, her husband, told her she’d never win another Oscar with Freeman. And yet Freeman had been her agent for 10 years, and a friend. He just arranged a deal by which she’ll make $10 million U.S. for Zorro II.

On the other hand, nobody supposes Zorro II will ever be listed among the Oscar nominees. She’s got money; what she wants, it sounds like, is respect.

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Isabella Rossellini’s latest movie is this bizarre The Saddest Music in the World.

She plays - get this - a beer tycoon in Winnipeg, back in Depression times. She starts a contest to find the saddest music in the world. Did I mention her character’s prosthetic legs are made of glass and filled with beer?

Man, I’m so sick of Winnipeg beer-leg movies! Can’t Hollywood think of anything new?

camilli@thegazette.canwest.com