Can you believe that I actually forgot that Matthew Fox was alleged to be a douchey cheater? The rumors about Matthew boning some stripper in Oregon came out before the Sandra Bullock-Jesse James marriage explosion, so maybe I was just paying attention to something else? Or I just was concentrating so hard on the plotlines of Lost? Could be. In any case, there were rumors about the alleged affair, and the stripper (named Stefani Talbott) gave an in-depth interview to In Touch Weekly, telling all about the affair. I kind of bought her story – not every single detail, but I believed Matthew and Stefani probably screwed around. Matthew never really got around to denying the story himself (his rep did though) as the story broke, which also made me think that there was some truth to it. However, Matthew denies the “story” in a new Playboy interview, but he still seems kind of weird about it:

Did Matthew Fox cheat on his wife Margherita with a stripper?

“The story is not true, and I’m not going to comment [further] on it,” the Lost star says in a new interview for Playboy’s May issue.

Fox, 43, says he and his wife bring out the best in each other. “Margherita and I have been best friends and best lovers,” he says. “She’s the love of my life.”

What makes their relationship work?

“We have managed to both be intensely independent and maintain that strength in our relationship,” he says. “I am a man, and I am an appreciator of women. At the same time, Margherita is the sh-t. I can honestly say we’re good together.”

And their union has stood the test of time. Says Fox: “We’ve been together for 23 years, so let’s leave it at that.”

Once Lost wraps for good, Fox and his family – including daughter Kyle and son Byron – plan to relocate to somewhere a little less tropical than Hawaii, where the hit ABC show films. “I miss having four seasons,” Fox, who plans to move to Oregon, says. “My brothers are two of my closest friends in the world. I want to spend time with them and my mother while I can. I want our two kids to be close to their first cousins.”

Of course the transition to the mainland won’t be easy.

“It will be hard for the kids to leave their friends in Hawaii,” he says. “They love it here, but with all respect to the good people of Hawaii who’ve been so good to us, I can’t wait to leave.”

[From People]

Does anyone else think that when Matthew says “We have managed to both be intensely independent and maintain that strength in our relationship. I am a man, and I am an appreciator of women. At the same time, Margherita is the sh-t. I can honestly say we’re good together,” he actually means “My wife lets me screw around. Mind your business.” I want to mind my bidness, honestly, but I find Matthew’s denial strange. Whatever.

In addition to those revelations, Matthew also told Playboy about how he lost his virginity, and about the time he threw his brother under the proverbial bus by telling his father that it was his brother’s marijuana garden out in the backyard.

Lost star Matthew Fox landed his brother in big trouble in his teens – by lying about a stash of marijuana. The actor was a hellraiser in his youth, but managed to keep the extent of his wild ways from his parents.

However, he feared he’d lost his lucky streak when his father found his “weed crop” hidden away on the family farm in Wyoming.

Fox tells Playboy magazine, “I blamed it on my brother Francis, who’s five years older than I am. He was in Mexico City on an exchange program for about six months. I thought, since Francis was so far away, the old man wouldn’t double back on him. My father wasn’t happy about it, but I think he was probably smiling through his anger… We smoked a lot of pot and were goofing around with that type of thing from a very early age.”

Fox lost his virginity by a river in his native Wyoming when he was 12.

The actor admits the sex session with a 14 year old was “terrible” and “awkward” – and nothing like the romantic notion he had in his head of what his first time would be like.

He tells Playboy magazine, “It wasn’t her first time… It was in Dubois, Wyoming, where the population sign probably says, to this day, about 1,000. It happened literally on the ground by a river while a rodeo was going on in town.

“It was absolutely terrible and awkward – just two f**king kids lying down and pulling our pants down.”

[From Wonderwall and The Post Chronicle]

Jesus. Matthew wins the “how did you lose your virginity” game. I’ll give to anyone whose story involves the words: ground, river and rodeo and Wyoming. As far as the pot story… dude, he was growing his own crop?!? He wins with that story as well. I’m starting to get the feeling that Matthew is nowhere near as conventional and family-friendly as his old Party of Five image would have us believe.