Jerry Seinfeld hasn’t exactly gotten the greatest reputation this last year. A lot of it had to do with his wife Jessica possibly plagiarizing the majority of her cookbook . And then Jerry making fun of the woman she plagiarized from on national television. Even though the original author had not said a single word about Jessica Seinfeld publicly. Which resulted in a much-deserved lawsuit.

There have long been rumors that Seinfeld can be rather aloof and distant, and it appears he’s even that way to his mother. Well, his television mother. Liz Sheridan played Jerry’s TV mom on Seinfeld for nine years, yet she can’t even get his phone number or get a message through to him because of all his “people.” So instead of being able to ask for his help directly, she had to do it via a rather circuitous route: radio.

Jerry Seinfeld’s “mom” is feeling abandoned by her superstar TV son. In a chat with BlogTalkRadio airing today, Liz Sheridan, who spent nine years playing Helen Seinfeld on “Seinfeld,” says “the most important thing in the whole world” is getting a movie made of her book, “Dizzy & Jimmy: My Life with James Dean - A Love Story.” (That 2000 memoir recounts her brief engagement to Dean during the early ’50s.)

Moments later, Sheridan, 79, is asked, “If you had the ability to have dinner tonight with anyone in history, who would it be and why?” She replies, “Jerry Seinfeld. Why? I’d ask him to help me raise the money for my movie.” And when the interviewer says, “I’m sure that he would if you called him up,” Sheridan laments, “I don’t even know how to get in touch with him. He’s got so many ‘people’ in front of him, you can’t get to him. And I don’t have his phone number.”

[From the New York Post]

What an awkward situation. I’m sure Seinfeld gets hit up for money all the time, which is probably why he has so many people acting as barriers. But you’d think a co-star of nine years would at least have the guy’s number or be able to get in contact with him. You can’t blame an actress for wanting to do whatever it takes to get her movie made. The book doesn’t sound incredibly original, but it has good reviews on Amazon. Even if Jerry Seinfeld doesn’t want to be attached to the project, you’d think he’d still be reachable enough for his longtime costar to talk to him directly.

Comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s vintage Fiat flipped over yesterday in the Hamptons after his brakes failed. He got up and walked out of the crash without any injuries, and his wife says he’s fine and was just a little shaken. Seinfeld pulled the emergency brake when the brakes failed and cut the car swiftly to the side to avoid oncoming traffic, which is when it flipped over. No other cars were hit:

The dramatic accident occurred at 7:40 p.m. Saturday on Skimhampton Road in East Hampton, said East Hampton Police Chief Todd Sarris.

Seinfeld was alone in the vehicle, driving north toward Montauk Highway.

“The brakes went bad,” Sarris said. But Jerry kept his head.

“He had to pull the emergency brake,” which Sarris said still failed to halt the two-door vehicle as it headed into traffic on the highway.

Seinfeld then cut the wheel to the right and “the car rolled over” and stopped yards from the intersection - just short of other vehicles.

The 1967 Fiat BTM rolled onto the passenger side, then the roof, and finally came to rest on the driver’s side.

“His actions probably avoided a very serious accident,” Sarris said. “I think he was a little shaken up, with justification.”

Police rushed to the scene, but the comic did not require medical attention.

The accident was chalked up to mechanical failure. Seinfeld had not been drinking and no summonses were issued, Sarris said.

A friend following Seinfeld in another car drove him to his nearby East Hampton mansion.

[From The NY Post]

Seinfeld made a stupid joke about the incident that brings home how dated and unfunny his skits are.

“Because I know there are kids out there, I want to make sure they all know that driving without braking is not something I recommend, unless you have professional clown training or a comedy background, as I do. It is not something I plan to make a habit of.”

I’m glad he got away unhurt and all, but couldn’t he have damaged someone else’s car or property and be faced with a massive lawsuit? The guy needs to be slapped with another one.

Seinfeld owns something like 47 Porsches, according to the NY Post, and had a huge multi million dollar garage built in NY city just to house his cars. Heaven forbid that building should burn to the ground or anything.

Jerry Seinfeld is making a comeback. Insert groan here ________. Thanks. Jerry’s going to be doing another show about nothing, or something close to it. Supposedly it’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” but with Jerry. Which is weird because “Curb Your Enthusiasm” was very much Seinfeld-like but with Larry David, and all the personality quirks and swear words amped up so it was “edgy” and fit for HBO. So essentially these two guys have one idea between them, and they just keep volleying it back and forth. Though we’ve been promised no insane “Bee Movie” promotion, I highly doubt that’ll actually happen, seeing as how yesterday when I was in Midtown Jerry Seinfeld was wandering up and down the sidewalks on 36th Street mumbling “Bee Movie Bee Movie Bee Movie Bee Movie I’m Jerry Seinfeld Bee Movie Bee Movie,” over and over again. But hey, at least this time he wasn’t wearing the costume.

Sources tell PageSix.com that the 53-year-old comedian is in talks for a new series on his old net. The show is being pitched as “just like Curb Your Enthusiasm, but with Jerry, instead of Larry.”

We guess it’s better than a show about nothing!

The series, which is aiming for a June premiere, will be set in New York and will feature Jerry Seinfeld playing himself in an exaggerated reality. The whole thing is a bit confusing for us — if Larry David in Curb was what would have happened had Seinfeld been called Costanza, what happens when Seinfeld goes Curb?

Thank goodness that as we speak, NBC is hiring people to answer these tough questions.

[From Page Six]

Awesome. Because what America really needs is more of this hack. I used to love Jerry Seinfeld until he got married. Why? Because 1) he first met and seduced his wife Jessica while she was on her honeymoon with her first husband and 2) several years later, said wife blatantly plagiarized a whole cookbook and 3) Seinfeld’s reaction to it was to call the plagiarized author, Missy Chase Lapine, a complete whackjob and make fun of her on Letterman even though Lapine had not made or commented publicly on the plagiarizing claims. What a class act.

In related news, Missy Chase Lapine eventually filed a very well-deserved lawsuit against both the Seinfelds – Jessica for plagiarizing the books, and Jerry for slandering her on Letterman – which the Seinfelds recently tried to have thrown out. Jerry claims that he was exaggerating for comedic effect – and while that was possible true, Lapine had done absolutely nothing to deserve being the victim of his barbs. She had at that point been silent while Jessica Seinfeld stole her ideas and made money off them! Interestingly, Jessica Seinfeld has the same literary agent - Jennifer Rudolph Walsh – as another plagiarizing author, Kaavya Viswanathan. Kind of makes you wonder.

Header of the Seinfelds at Madonna’s “A Night to Benefit Raising Malawi and UNICEF” (cough cough fake Kabbalah cult cough). Images thanks to PR Photos.

Update by Celebitchy: NBC and Seinfeld’s rep have both denied this report and say there is no show in the works.

Jessica Seinfeld recently published a book, Deceptively Delicious, about how to sneak healthy foods into your cooking, to fool your kids into eating them. Like muffins with carrots in them. Which works very well if you can get your kid to eat a muffin.

The book was published in October 2007, hot on the heels of another book titled The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids’ Favourite Meals which came out in April. The two books have a few of the same recipies, and The Sneaky Chef aka Missy Chase Lapine has a remarkably similar method for discovering how to add vegetables into mac and cheese.

Jessica Seinfeld’s book plagiarized Lapine’s in concept, cover art - including a similar picture showing hidden carrots - style and structure, according to the lawsuit that seeks unspecified damages.

When Seinfeld appeared on Letterman’s show, he said the books were published at the same time and implied Lapine was a “wacko” and celebrity stalker, comments the suit - filed in Manhattan federal court - described as “false.”

Seinfeld also joked that Lapine accused his wife of “vegetable plagiarism” and poking fun at Lapine’s name and mental condition, including contending that “if you read history, many of the three-name people do become assassins,” before citing John Lennon’s killer Mark David Chapman, the suit said.

The suit said the comedian later told E! News, “this woman is another kind of nut. You know, she thinks she invented vegetables. And she is accusing my wife of stealing her mashed-up carrots.”

Sydney Morning Herald

I checked out the two cover images on Amazon - The Sneaky Chef and Deceptively Delicious are both linked to each other because of their similarities - and I think the ‘hidden carrots’ aren’t really hidden, it’s just that both covers have carrots. What do you think?

I honestly think that it was completely wrong, but I do wonder if Jessica Seinfeld did actually come up with the recipe book concept herself. I have three kids (so does Jessica) that I cook for, and I can tell you right now that in between the cursing and yelling (that’s me) and the crying and naughtiness (that’s them) I am not experimenting in the kitchen. I am basically slopping food on the kids plates before spending three hours making aeroplane noises to get them to eat anything.

Meanwhile, Missy Chase Lapine is a former food magazine editor and creator of a baby goods range.

Recently the books have been criticised for creating poor eating habits. Experts say that hiding vegetables in your kids food means they never acquire the taste of veggies and create good eating habits for adulthood. Also, a little bit of vegetable mixed into the sauce of a dish is going to carry very little of the nutritional value that a whole vegetable would.

This hasn’t stopped anyone buying the books, and I hope that Jessica Seinfeld hands over some of the money she’s made from her book to Missy Lapine. What probably happened is that Jessica’s book was due to be handed in to publishers and she didn’t have enough ideas, so she ‘borrowed’ a few from other sources.

Also, some compensation is due from the Seinfeld couple using their profile to not only sell their book, but also to call Lapine ‘crazy’.

Picture note by Celebitchy: I made the header image, and I see a lot of similarities between those two book covers. Some may be a coincidence, but it’s hardly possible that all the similar recipes are just a coincidence too.

Jerry Seinfeld hasn’t exactly been ingratiating himself with the writers at Celebitchy lately. First his wife appeared to have plagiarized a lot of her new cookbook from former publisher of Eating Well magazine Missy Chase Lapine. That’s probably not Jerry’s fault, but we’re going to call him guilty by association. Then he mentioned that he spent some time studying Scientology, and talked about its good points. That’s like saying Hell isn’t really all that hot, just comfortably balmy. Finally on Monday night Seinfeld was on Letterman, where he called Lapine “a wacko.” As far as I know, Lapine hadn’t even commented publicly on the controversy at that point – and Seinfeld tried to make it sound like she was the one drumming it up. Considering how blatant the plagiarism appears to be, the Seinfelds should be apologizing right and left, and their publisher should have considered pulling the book in an attempt to avoid litigation. So Jerry Seinfeld has tried to smooth over one of the controversies – though I’m not sure it’s the one he should most apologize for. He explained his Scientology dabbling to “Access Hollywood” and wrote it off, saying he was flittering from one thing to the other at the time.

Among their topics of conversation? The stir Seinfeld recently caused when he revealed he’d dabbled in Scientology. “I did some Scientology courses about 30 years ago,” Jerry told Billy. “The only thing that bothers me about people knowing that is that it is not my complete wacko resume. It’s just one aspect! I am very interested in self help things,” Jerry continued. “When I was a young man in my 20s I would explore like meditation, and I studied Aikido and karate and yoga and I would just take little things from each of these things.”

“But everyone else takes from yoga and Aikido and all those things, but Scientology has this stigma around it. And you say it was very helpful?” Bush asked. “Yeah, well I didn’t do very much. I don’t know that much, I just did a little but I liked it,” Seinfeld said. “Why did you stop?” Bush asked. “I don’t know… I was kind of flitting from thing to thing. I was interested in exploring,” Seinfeld noted.

[From MSNBC]

I guess that actually does make some sense. Seinfeld was pretty vague about his reasons, but I think a lot of us flitter from thing to thing in our twenties. I learned about lots of religions trying to figure out which one made sense, and did read up on Scientology. Of course that’s also when I realized it was one of the craziest messes of nonsense I’d ever encountered. But their literature had to be some of the funniest stuff I’ve read in a long time. I’m telling you, Dave Barry has nothing on L. Ron Hubbard.

In other Seinfeld “Vegetable Plagiarism” news, Missy Chase Lepine and her publisher, Running Press, did respond to Seinfeld’s comments on Letterman.

“As the publisher of The Sneaky Chef we are troubled that a celebrity of Jerry Seinfeld’s stature chose to go on the Late Show with David Letterman last night and personally attack the book’s author, Missy Chase Lapine.

This controversy arose out of concerns expressed by parents on message boards who noticed that the recent book by Jessica Seinfeld is similar to The Sneaky Chef which was published 6 months earlier. Neither we nor our author have publicly accused anyone of anything.”

Statement of Missy Chase Lapine, author of The Sneaky Chef:

“It was painful to be called names on national TV when I am just a mom who wrote a cookbook to help parents get their kids to eat well.”

[From PRNewswire]

I think the Seinfelds are starting to look pretty low-class, and their timing couldn’t be worse. Promoting Jerry’s first movie and Jessica’s first book seems like a bad time to take the low road.

Picture note by Jaybird: Header image of Jerry and Jessica Seinfeld at the “Bee Movie” Los Angeles Premiere on October 28th. Image thanks to PR Photos.

Jessica Seinfeld wrote a book called “Deceptively Delicious” about sneaking vegetables into your kids’ food. It’s pretty popular, she got a special on Oprah, and more kids are eating butternut squash mac and cheese as a result. Unfortunately, another lady named Missy Chase Lepine wrote pretty much the same book, called “The Sneaky Chef,” a few months before Jessica Seinfeld, and now Seinfeld is being accused of plagiarism. Though she denies the charges, it seems like there’s a pretty strong case against her: some of the recipes and phrasing are nearly identical. Celebitchy wrote a great article comparing the two books.

Well Jerry Seinfeld seemed to think it was a good idea to brand Lepine a “whacko.” Even if Jessica Seinfeld is totally innocent and never saw the other book, Lepine is certainly not a whacko for noting the remarkable similarity between the two. But Seinfeld seems to think it’s a good idea to slander other people who I’m guessing are already feeling pretty litigious.

Jerry Seinfeld turned his wife’s recent cookbook controversy into a comedy bit Monday night, telling David Letterman he and Jessica Seinfeld are paying no mind to the “wackos.”

“One of the fun facts of celebrity life is that wackos will wait in the woodwork to pop out at certain moments to inject a little adrenaline,” he said on CBS’s Late Show Monday night.

The former Must-See star, 53, who was on the show to promote his Bee Movie, couldn’t help but chime in on what he’s dubbed the “vegetable plagiarism” controversy surrounding his wife Jessica’s best-seller Deceptively Delicious – namely, claims that some of the recipes weren’t hers.

“If you’re any good as a woodwork wacko, you’re patient. You pick your moment and then you spring out and go wacko,” Seinfeld told Letterman. “There’s another woman who had another cookbook. And it was a similar kind of thing. My wife never saw the book, read the book, never used the book. But the books came out at the same time. So this woman says ‘I sense this could be wacko moment,’ so she comes out and accuses my wife.

[From People]

I’ve pretty much decided that Jerry Seinfeld is a jerk. I was neutral before, then the whole “defending Scientology” thing made me edge a little towards dislike. Being married to a plagiarizer didn’t help things but her actions weren’t his fault. But calling a totally innocent person a whacko because your wife seems to have stolen her stuff pretty much makes you a jerk. I’d make a “Jerk store” joke, but it’d only be funny if you watched “Seinfeld.” Actually it wasn’t even funny then. So he’s pretty much just an ass.

Picture note by Jaybird: Header image of Jerry and Jessica Seinfeld at the “Bee Movie” Los Angeles Premiere on October 28th. Image thanks to PR Photos.

I always knew Jerry Seinfeld was funny, but I had no clue he was that funny. The man behind the show about nothing actually says that Scientology made him a better comedian – and not because it’s all so ridiculous that it makes for good material. For once, Jerry is being pretty serious, and says that he took some Scientology courses on communication, and they helped him with his act. Once in a blue moon… someone will say something about Scientology and not mock them. I just didn’t think it be coming from a comedian.

Bee Movie star Jerry Seinfeld says that studying Scientology made him a better performer — and not because it gave him some good material. The 53-year-old comedian tells Parade magazine that a teacher in high school turned him onto the religion almost 30 years ago. “It was interesting. Believe it or not…it’s extremely intellectual and clinical in its approach to problem-solving, which really appealed to me.” Though Seinfeld has not continued with Scientology, he tells Parade that it helped him get his start in comedy. “In my early years of stand-up, it was very helpful. I took a couple of courses. One of them was in communication, and I learned some things about communication that really got my act going.”

Could the same be said for the rest of Scientology’s Hollywood devotees? The Church counts musician Beck, John Travolta, and of course, Tom Cruise, among its members. Seinfeld explains that as an entertainer, Scientology “really helped me onstage to understand how you have to invade the space of the audience a little bit…Not too much, because then it’s obnoxious. But you can’t be short of them either, or you won’t control them.” Another draw for Seinfeld — the gadgets. “They have a lot of very good technology,” he tells Parade. “That’s what really appealed to me about it. It’s not faith-based. It’s all technology. And I’m obsessed with technology.”

[From Us Magazine]

He has an interesting point, in that Scientology is the only religion I can think of that isn’t based just on faith, it’s based on technology. Notice that I said technology, not science. I would argue that it is still faith-based, as I don’t think there’s any technology that reaches Xenu – though I can’t swear to it.

Picture note by Jaybird: Speaking of great Scientology technology, here’s the Hubbard Electrometer, also known as the e-meter. According to Wikipedia: “An E-meter is an electronic device manufactured by the Church of Scientology at their Gold Base production facility. It is used as an aid by Dianetics and Scientology counselors and counselors-in-training in some forms of auditing, the application of the techniques of Dianetics and Scientology to another or to oneself for the express purpose of addressing spiritual issues. A 1971 ruling of the United States District Court, District of Columbia (333 F. Supp. 357), specifically stated, “The E-meter has no proven usefulness in the diagnosis, treatment or prevention of any disease, nor is it medically or scientifically capable of improving any bodily function.” Header image of Jerry doing some funny (mildly degrading in a good way) promotion for “Bee Movie.”

Update By Celebitchy: He’s just licking Tom Cruise’s ass. (That wording is deliberate, and I wanted to make it more explicit, but you get the point.) Scientology is a cult and a sham and you’re better off buying any dimestore psychology book from the last 50 years than taking a single one of their courses and becoming a target with a dollar sign on your head. If I didn’t hate the Seinfelds enough after Jessica ripped off that cookbook, they just gave me another reason.

Maybe some personal information about Seinfeld got “audited” and he doesn’t want it released by the Scientologists, they routinely blackmail people like that, or maybe he wants Tom Cruise to greenlight the movie project his wife comes up with once she’s exposed as a fraud and a plagiarist. Either way, he could have paid $50 to see a shrink for one session or picked up a Carl Rogers book and gained infinitely more personal insight. (Those references are deliberately dated because he said it was in the 70s.)

I wonder if the Scientology “organization” gave Jerry and Jessica access to one of their exclusive vacation resorts reserved for celebrities in exchange for this comment. They once planted an entire field of wheat using slave labor to help Tom Cruise woo Nicole Kidman.

It makes me sick that he would say this. Scientology is a cult that ruins lives. It should not have tax free status as a religion in the US and when celebrities make idiotic statements that imply that its benign and helpful they end up sucking in thousands more hapless victims.

Here is more information about how Scientology gets celebrity endorsements through commissions and luxurious vacations.

Jessica Seinfeld was on Oprah last week to promote her new cook book Deceptively Delicious, which has recipes that teach you how to trick your kids to eat vegetables by pureeing them up and putting them in baked goods and other kid favorites like chicken nuggets. The book became a best seller this week, and to thank Oprah, Mrs. Seinfeld sent her 21 pairs of some of the most expensive shoes available, mostly red-soled Christian Louboutins, with a note that “there are no words.”

This story sickened me a little, because Oprah is worth $1.4 billion as of last year and she just doesn’t need material things. Still, she fawned over the shoes like she does all the other pricey shit on her “Oprah’s favorite things” episodes, which just makes average people feel like we need expensive brand name luxuries in order to be happy and fulfilled like Queen Oprah.

Here is a clip from the show yesterday. Jerry Seinfeld was on to promote Bee Movie, in which Oprah has a voice cameo. Oprah of course thanked Jessica for the extravagant thank you.

After hearing this story I was interested in Seinfeld’s book, as I have a three year old and it’s very hard to get him to eat vegetables. A lot of commentors on Amazon noted that this topic was covered better in an earlier cookbook called The Sneaky Chef, in which the recipes are a lot more palatable for children by some accounts. Many people expressed dismay that Jessica Seinfeld would publish a book so similar to The Sneaky Chef without providing an acknowledgment of their efforts or inspiration.

I’m inclined to believe she did get a lot of ideas from the earlier cookbook, considering that she decided to spend $20k instead of taking the time to come up with a thoughtful thank you note to Oprah. Then again, Oprah wouldn’t have acknowledged a simple card on the air, no matter how rich and meaningful the prose.

Thanks to The Huffington Post for the video and to US Magazine for the link to the story.

Jessica and Jerry Seinfeld are shown at the opening of The Odd Couple on Broadway on 10/27/05. Thanks to PRPhotos.

In Touch weekly has published some gossip from a “friend” of Jerry Seinfeld’s wife, Jessica, suggesting their marriage is in trouble. The poor woman complains about being left alone to take care of their three children and her friend blabs to the tabloid:

The article goes on to say that the Seinfelds have a 25 room penthouse in NY and a mansion in the Hamptons.

It sounds to us like the woman is just trying to blow off steam by confiding in a friend. It’s tiresome to take care of kids all day, and she has the right to complain. Her “friend” sounds jealous and should have kept her mouth shut.

Jerry Seinfeld, 51, met his wife Jessica, 33, in 1998 while they were working out at the same gym in NY. Jessica was a newlywed at the time and divorced her husband to be with Seinfeld. They have three children Sascha, 4, Julian, 3, and Shepherd, 7 months.

Picture [via]