It’s safe to say that Hugh Grant has some issues with the paparazzi. In just the past few years, he’s hauled off and thumped one over the head with a tub of baked beans as well as kicking a photog in the crotch seemingly just for giggles. To be utterly fair, Grant’s got a pretty understandable reason to dislike the tabloids and their paps, for he was one of the thousands of public figures targeted within the huge wiretapping scandal involving the Rupert Murdoch-owned News of the World and The Sun. That particular scandal went down a couple of years ago, and it’s such a huge mess that we’ll probably not see the end of it for quite some time.

Hugh’s story picks up a few months ago when he was merrily driving along in his Ferrari (he calls it “my midlife crisis car”) and broke down on the side of the road. Shortly thereafter, a bloke stopped to help him but then pulled out a long-lens camera and commenced snapping away. At some point, Hugh realizes that this guy is Paul McMullan, a former News of the World pap and one of the key whistleblowers in the aforementioned wiretapping scandal. McMullan now bides his time running a pub, but that certainly didn’t stop him from selling the photos and story about finding a broken-down Hugh to the Daily Mail.

Hugh then later contacted McMullan and, unbeknownst to the former pap, recorded their conversation, which is now published in New Statesmen for all to see. Amongst many other revelations recorded by Hugh, McMullan actually thanks Hugh for breaking down on the side of the road and helping him make £3000 for the story, and also for being “a very good earner” for him in the past. McMullan goes on to claim that, in the past, Daily Mail was also just as bad about tapping cell phones as the two tabloids that got popped in the wiretapping scandal. He also bemoans the fact that the days of analogue mobiles have since passed, for that was a time when it was incredibly easy to use a cheap scanner and record the full phone conversations of Princess Di, Prince Charles, and the like. The entire article details a rather riveting discussion, which is well worth reading in full, but here are some relevant excerpts pertaining to McMullan’s former employ under NOTW:

Grant: Murdoch, yes . . .
McMullan: So I was sent to do a feature on Moulin Rouge! at Cannes, which was a great send anyway. Basically my brief was to see who Nicole Kidman was shagging – what she was doing, poking through her bins and get some stuff on her. So Murdoch’s paying her five million quid to big up the French and at the same time paying me £5.50 to f*ck her up . . . So all hail the master. We’re just pawns in his game. How perverse is that?

Grant: I suppose the fact that they’re dragging their feet while investigating a mass of phone-hacking – which is a crime – some people would think is a bit depressing about the police.
McMullan: But then – should it be a crime? I mean, scanning never used to be a crime. Why should it be? You’re transmitting your thoughts and your voice over the airwaves. How can you not expect someone to just stick up an aerial and listen in?
Grant: I’d rather no one listened in, to be honest. And I might not be alone there. You probably wouldn’t want people listening to your conversations.
McMullan: I’m not interesting enough for anyone to want to listen in.
Grant: But celebrities you would justify because they’re rich?
McMullan: Yeah. I mean, if you don’t like it, you’ve just got to get off the stage. It’ll do wonders.
Grant: So I should have given up acting?
McMullan: If you live off your image, you can’t really complain about someone . . .
Grant: I live off my acting. Which is different to living off your image.
Him Yeah, but you’re still presenting yourself to the public. And if the public didn’t know you . . .
Grant: They don’t give a sh*t. I got arrested with a hooker and they still came to my films. They don’t give a f*&@ about your public image. They just care about whether you’re in an entertaining film or not.
McMullan: That’s true . . . I have terrible difficulty with him [points to pap shot of Johnny Depp]. He’s really difficult. You know, I was in Venice and he was a nightmare to do because he walks around looking like Michael Jackson. And the punchline was . . . after leading everyone a merry dance the film was shot on an open balcony – I mean, it was like – he was standing there in public.
Grant: And you don’t see the difference between the two situations?
McMullan: You can’t hide all the time.
Grant: So you’re saying, if you’re Johnny Depp or me, you don’t deserve to have a private life?
McMullan: You make so much more money. You know, most people in Dover take home about £200 and struggle.

[From New Statesman]

All of these admissions essentially speak for themselves, and the paparazzo comes off looking like a huge douche. Of course celebrities (especially those like Johnny Depp, who would never sell wedding photos to a tabloid) don’t deserve to have their private conversations targeted by hackers. The argument always exists whether people who purposely seek out fame even deserve privacy, and to a degree, they necessarily give some of it up by not being able to walk down a street without having their photograph taken. And of course, they shouldn’t be stupid enough in this day and age to put nude photos on their cell phones, but they don’t deserve to be hacked.

Photos are from September and December, 2010 and March, 2011. Credit: WENN.com

This story is from the April issue of Cigar Aficionado magazine with Matthew McConaughey on the cover. It’s been on newsstands for a while, but I picked it up in my local CVS and was pleased to see some new quotes I had read yet from McConaughey, who was recently unnecessarily bashed in Esquire by a journalist with a chip on his shoulder. (Thanks to all of you who pointed out that this was the same guy who made Brooklyn Decker look like an idiot, which she very well may be, but still.) The story in Cigar Aficionado is the one that McConaughey deserved in Esquire, because he comes across as thoughtful, introspective and grateful for his success in life. They quote people close to him who praise his career moves and talk about what a great guy he is. This is the impression I get of him in every interview and while I understand that he can be up his own ass sometimes, he’s a harmless stoner and they have that tendency. There’s no reason to paint a skewed picture of the guy because of it.

There are a lot of gems in this interview and it’s a shame they haven’t been more publicized. I love McConaughey’s take on the paparazzi particularly. He sees it as part of his job, and he’ll work out deals with them to leave him alone after they get their shots. Here are some of my favorite quotes from this article, and I would recommend you pick up the March/April issue of Cigar Aficionado if you’re a fan. It’s a very interesting and well written piece.

On public opinion making the law
“Public opinion is the tail wagging the dog, which is the law. It should be inverted. We elect these people because they supposedly know the law. Experts supposedly make the law. Judges are judges because they’re supposed to know the law. But when the public shouts first, public opinion creates a verdict before something even gets to court.

On Michael Vick
“Look at the Michael Vick thing. The NFL didn’t go hard on him, until public opinion said, ‘Hang him.’ Then the feds and the NFL stepped in. I don’t think the penalty would have been what it was until the public’s outrage was expressed. I’m not saying he shouldn’t have served time. But look at all the high profile people who’ve been allowed to stay free while doing heinous things to other people. But you create any kind of smoke and a team or an institution is going to say, ‘We don’t like this attention,’ and they’ll fire him.”

On how he deals with the paparazzi
“I was tired of getting pissed off. It was legitimate but I was tired of it. I though, well, am I ready to move to a place where they weren’t? No, not for good. Was I ready to build fences or tall walls around my house? No. So I just shook hands with it and dealt with it.

“So, say I’m taking my kids to the beach. And the photographers are there. I just talk to them and say, ‘OK, go ahead and take your picture. And then move on.’ How many pictures do they need of me running on the beach? So far, they’ve mostly respected that. But you’ve got to have a relationship with that kind of thing if you go out in public because that check’s already been written. Sure, I feel intruded upon. But I don’t feel it’s unfair. I can’t do anything about it unless I move on or imprison myself, and I don’t want to live like that.”

On whether he’ll marry Camilla
“Marriage isn’t something I’m against. My parents married each other three times – and divorced twice. I know a few older couples who have been married a long time and are happy; I’ve been around healthy marriages. I knew I wanted a family and I found a woman I love and felt was right for me. I thought, ‘That’s the woman I want to make a family with.’ But marriage – it’s not something we feel we need to be complete. It doesn’t mean we won’t do it.

“It doesn’t make my mom that happy that we’re not married. But it doesn’t make her mad either. Of course, I was raised to believe that you don’t have sex until you’re married. So there you are.”

[From Cigar Aficionado, print edition, April 2011]

There’s a lot more in there about how McConaughey got his start in Hollywood. He was discovered by a producer on Dazed and Confused in a bar in Austin, Texas. Then he went out to LA and started auditioning, earning his first leading role in Grisham’s A Time To Kill when he was up for a part of a Klansman and told the director he thought he should be the lead. They let him audition and then Grisham picked him personally for the role. McConaughey described the moment when Grisham called him personally with the news. “After I hung up, I went out and howled at the moon. That was big. I understood what that meant.”

I’ll be a Matthew McConaughey fan until he makes a dick move. Considering that he hasn’t done that in his 15 years of fame and has been nothing but low key, mellow and gracious with the press and even to the paparazzi that hound him, that probably won’t happen.

Above photos are scans from Cigar Aficionado magazine, where there are more. Photos of McConaughey running below are just from the month of March. Credit: Fame Pictures

There’s new video of Miley Cyrus telling the paparazzi that they need to back off and stop following her. In the video, she pulls over, walks up to the photographer’s window and says that the driver of another car is calling the cops on him for cutting him off. It’s notable not just for the fact that Miley is rightfully annoyed at the paparazzi, but because of how well and calmly she handles the situation. Miley is in control and she doesn’t get upset while she tells the photographer he’s not going to follow her any longer. She’s very respectful in a situation where other celebrities might be screaming at the guy to leave. The girl knows how to handle herself, that’s for sure.

This is Miley’s second recent confrontation with a paparazzo. She told a photographer from Splash news to stop taping her while she was having lunch with her little 10 year-old sister. (The video is here and photos below.) That was the day that Miley went out in a thin white t-shirt without a bra. She could dress a little more modestly, but I can’t fault her for the way she’s handing the paparazzi. She’s telling them to lay off and is doing it calmly and assertively. To the earlier photographer, she said “You were disrespectful and rude. Have some class, dude.”

I like Miley so much more after this. She’s not throwing coffee at photographers (like Shia LaBeouf recently), screaming and swearing at them (like Julia Roberts), hitting them (Russell Brand) or smashing their cameras (Kanye West) she’s just calling them on their bad behavior. This girl is 17 year-old and she’s handling herself better than many adults with years more experience in the business. If only she would stop trying to act like an adult in her music videos too.

Video via ONTD

Miley is shown in the header photo on 10/13/10 (credit: Fame). She’s shown schooling the photographer below on 10/12/10. (credit: WENN.com)

Nicole Richie has issued a very stern warning to the paparazzi who wait for her to drop off and pick up her daughter outside of preschool. She wrote a letter on her website to paparazzi agency X17 telling them that she’ll do background checks on all of them and turn in anyone who doesn’t have a license or (presumably) is in the country illegally. Richie also refers to an October, 2009 accident in which one of X17′s photographers rear-ended her car while chasing her for pictures. Nicole was hospitalized briefly following the accident, and was lucky to be in the car alone without her children. There was speculation that it was set up to cause a disturbance and create more valuable photos. Nicole was subsequently granted a three year restraining order against the two paparazzi involved. Here’s her letter:

Dear X17,

THANK YOU so much for posting the video of your employees sitting outside of my daughter’s school, because now the entire world can see how creepy and disgusting you are.

You do not get to spend 200 dollars on a camera, and think that gives you a free pass to shadow my child. These are strangers, grown men, stalking young children. You think that’s ok?

Here’s a better visual: Pulling up to school and seeing grown men slouched in black windowed cars outside of a preschool, all day. I’m not even there, so you cannot say you are following me as you always do. You are stalking the children. Now how do you feel?

I PROMISE YOU that I am going to do a background check on each and every person that I see there. For the safety of my children and others. Because the last time I did a check on your staff, I found they had no license. Remember that day? The day that ended with a car accident and me in a hospital? You, x17, better be pretty confident in your actions, and feel really good about what you are doing. If I find out anyone has a suspended, restricted or invalid license, I will have them thrown in jail before they can pick up the phone and call their lawyers.

YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELVES. These are young children and you should know better. X17, you are irresponsible and repulsive. Consider this a warning.

Nicole Richie

[From Nicole Richie's website]

Nicole should lend a hand to Jennifer Garner too. I know a lot of people (Kaiser) think Garner calls the paps but I think that they hound and stalk her and her family relentlessly. There’s a new California anti-paparazzi law that went into effect in January, 2010 that makes it a crime to “sell unauthorized photos of celebrities in ‘personal or familial activity.’” Richie could call the cops on these creeps if they’re breaking the law. I think threatening to hire a private investigator might be slightly more effective at getting rid of them.

Here’s Nicole promoting her book on 10/6/10. Her hair is so pretty like that! I love the style and color – and her makeup is perfection! I hope she starts a new trend for celebrities to take out the ridiculous extensions. Credit: WENN.com

Russell Brand was arrested on Friday on misdemeanor battery charges for assaulting a paparazzo, or several paparazzi. The paparazzi claim that they were just taking photos of Katy Perry and Brand when Brand attacked them. Brand and Perry’s story seems to be that the photographers had gotten too close, and that one of them was trying to shove his camera up Katy’s skirt, and Brand was just defending his lady’s honor. Or that the photographers were simply blocking his path – something like that.

Russell Brand was arrested at LAX on Friday afternoon, L.A. Airport Police confirmed to UsMagazine.com.

The British comic, 35, and his fiancee Katy Perry were going through airport security when Brand reportedly began pushing and striking photographers snapping pictures of the famous pair. One of those paparazzos then placed Brand under citizen’s arrest.

Brand was then interviewed by airport police and taken into custody. He and Perry, 24, did not board their schedule Delta flight to Las Vegas.

Russell Brand has been released from police custody for a misdemeanor charge of simple battery. His bail was set at $20,000. He is due to appear at an LA court on October 15th.

About the incident, Katy tweeted: “If you cross the line & try an put a lens up my dress, my fiancé will do his job & protect me.”

[From Us Weekly]

Yeah, this seems like a non-incident, honestly. I’m surprised it went down like this, and that Brand was arrested. If it had gone down outside a club, I doubt anything would have come of it, but since it happened in an airport, everyone panicked. On one side, yes, I totally understand why Brand went berserk, and I think it’s sweet that he protected his girl, and if the pap was really shoving his camera up Katy’s skirt, then that is totally a violation. On the other side, why violently attack a photographer for any reason? That’s what they want. Don’t engage. Eh. Plus, there are a million Katy Perry up skirt photos – she’s always in miniskirts, and she’s always flashing. Whatever.

Russell, Katy, the police and the paparazzi during the incident on Sept. 17, 2010. Credit: WENN.

This is a weird story. Apparently, Shia LaBeouf was “caught” by paparazzi when he was trying to “steal” an X17 photographer’s camera. Something about how the paparazzi were “swarming” him and he decided to take one of their cameras? If you go to X17 here and watch the video (nevermind, I embedded it below), you can see and hear that the X17 cameraman was basically taunting Shia and Shia zipped around him and went to the guy’s car to f-ck with his sh-t. Totally weird. The cops were called.

Shia LaBeouf was caught red handed when he tried to remove an X17 paparazzo’s camera on Wednesday afternoon. According to X17 Online, the ‘Transformers’ star was spotted taking camera equipment from the photographer’s car in Hollywood. LaBeouf saw the paparazzi swarming outside his house and decided the only way to keep them from snaping photos was to take the cameras out of the equation. He helped himself to the equipment and reportedly returned to his residence to call the police. Police eventually had LaBeouf give up the camera and didn’t arrest him.

“We handle each incident on a case-by-case basis,” an unnamed official told X17 Online.

Of course, LaBeouf has had a few run ins with the paparazzi in the past and stated how much he hates losing his privacy. In April, Pacific Coast News reported that LaBeouf got into an altercation with a photographer while he was filling up his truck at a gas station.

After realizing he was being photographed, he charged a photographer and allegedly said, “If you follow me all day I am going to f**k you up.”

[From PopEater]

I mean, I get that the paparazzi are frustrating, and obviously, this cameraman is a total douche. But that video was just strange, and I’m not seeing this paparazzi “swarm”. It just seems like it was this one douche. Granted, he sounds French and creepy, but just ignore him. It’s just one douche! I want Shia to be more mature than this.

Yesterday some quotes came out from Melanie Griffith on how she’s dealing with her longterm addiction. Melanie was in rehab earlier this year to cope with what her husband, Antonio Banderas, explains as a dependence on painkillers following knee surgery. Melanie is a little more forthcoming about what she went through, and likens her addiction as a monster that she has to work to starve. These quotes are from Hello! Magazine (and Hola!, the Spanish-language sister publication) and are part of an epic interview with both Melanie and Antonio that we covered earlier. Since we have access to the print version, I’ll include some more quotes from Melanie that are interesting, particularly her take on her career and addiction. As I mentioned in our story about this on Monday, Melanie and Antonio sound very committed to their relations and their family without glossing over the difficulties they’ve faced. I was kind of impressed by the candid and loving things they said about each other, but many of you found it cloying and speculated that a divorce wasn’t too far behind. You never know.

Melanie, does Hollywood treat older actresses as ruthlessly as it seems to?
“It depends how you see yourself. This industry is terrible for women of a certain age, but if you’re positive and you think you’re good, you can get roles for older women, and you’ll work. At least that’s what I think.”

And in a world where everyone’s looking for young actresses, do you manage not to worry about your age?
“I try. They don’t ask me to take my clothes off in movies anymore! It’s so sad! [laughs]”

As the daughter of Tippi [Hendren] and actor Peter Griffith, you had every possibility of being a spoilt Hollywood kid. Were you?
“It was a different time. These days the paparazzi crucify the girls, and they don’t have any kind of protection. They make a lot of mistakes and they do it in public. When I was that age, things were different. I did a lot of crazy things, but I wasn’t in the papers every day. These days there’s no privacy.”

Quite a few years ago, a photo of you going into a rehab centre set tongues waggin, and a few months ago you went back. How are you now?
“I’m great. When I was 30, I went to a treatment centre for six weeks and that kept me going for a long time. In 2000, I went in for eight days to help me quit pills.”

It had something to do with a neck injury…
“Yes, I’d had a car accident and it was really painful. That was a good excuse for me, because I’m an alcoholic and an addict. All my life I’ve fought against it, and I’ve done a good job.

“This last time, when I went into treatment for painkillers I was taking for my knee, I got the help I needed and I had all Antonio’s and my daughter’s support, the support of Alexander and Jesse. Now I feel free. I don’t drink, I don’t take pills. Nothing. And it’s fantasic. It’s like getting out of prison.”

With all these obstacles you’ve got past, are you a more positive person?
“Yes, and I’m stronger, because addiction’s a tough enemy to defeat.”

Almost like fighting against yourself.
“No, not against yourself. In a way I think of it as a monster. If I feed it, it will always want more and more, so now I’m letting it starve to death in a corner. But it’s always there. That’s why it’s important to keep going to meetings with friends of mine who have the same problems, the same sickness.

“Alcoholism and addiction are an illness and that’s a fact. But I think that the hardest part is the way that people look at you because you have this disease. So if there’s something that I can do, it’s help other people who have it, too.”

[From Hello Magazine, print edition, April 26, 2010]

I admire how open Melanie is about her addiction, and how she says she hopes to take the stigma away from it. As for her take on the paparazzi, I don’t think they’re the monsters she’s making them out to be. When you look at what happened to Britney Spears the photographers are partially culpable, but we’ll never know if she would have had the same problems out of the spotlight. Plus people know where to go to avoid the paparazzi and if they’re hitting the Hollywood hotspots they have only themselves to blame when they’re photographed outside drunk off their asses. I would have worse things to say about how the paparazzi pursue families and children, not 20-something young women who should be responsible for their own (drunken) behavior.

Melanie and Antonio were at the premiere of Shrek Ever After last night and they looked just as united and happy as ever – and Antonio cut off his goat beard! The hot but tired-looking Antonio has returned. I’m not seeing a split in their immediate future, but you never know. These things have a way of happening all too frequently.

Photo credit: WENN.com. Melanie is also shown at Coachella on 4/17 and 4/18.

Last Friday, we heard about yet another incident of Lindsay Lohan being a f-cking mess out and about in LA. Much like the cactus incident just days before, Lindsay busted her ass because she was wasted. Only Lindsay can’t say that she was really wasted, because it always has to be someone’s fault. With both the cactus incident and the April Fools incident, Lindsay blamed the paparazzi for “pushing” her. Note: there was video of both incidents, and although the paparazzi are crowding her, they aren’t touching her. But that didn’t stop Lindsay from getting on her Twitter and raging about… something.

From what I could understand of Lindsay’s crack ramblings, it seems as if she’s blaming the paparazzi for not only “pushing” her, but also for paying off bouncers to refuse her entrance. Now, there has been a rash of various clubs and parties refusing Lindsay entry lately. It started a few weeks ago when Lindsay tried to bust into a private party and the bouncers made her wait fifteen minutes while the paparazzi captured her crack face getting madder and madder. In the past week and a half, Lindsay has been denied entry to several other clubs and events too, and the paparazzi are always there to capture it.

So, does Lindsay’s cracked out conspiracy theory make sense? Are the paparazzi paying people off so that they can get better shots of Lindsay standing around, falling down, rubbing her firecrotch on innocent cacti, throwing cocaine on her shoes, looking pissy and glazed, and being a general milkaholic? Not to sound nasty, but I don’t think the paparazzi have to pay people to get those shots. A source noted to Page Six over the weekend that with the incident last Thursday/Friday when Lindsay was denied entrance to Voyeur, “She is so out of control, nobody wants her to do their club appearances because she’s such a liability.” Gawker agrees with my assessment: “If the bouncer colluded with the paps, why aren’t the pictures better? You’d think they’d have staged a better angle or something, because the ones of her falling down are far zanier. Conclusion: If the paparazzi paid off Voyeur’s bouncer, they’re idiots, because bribes aren’t necessary for wacky LiLo pics. She provides them on her own, for free, all the time.”

Meanwhile, let’s hear the last word from Mother Delusion herself, Dina Lohan. Dina went to Radar to give an “exclusive statement” about whether her daughter’s ass is so broke she can’t even pay her rent. Dina of course calls that report a “total lie” and claims: “It’s unfortunate that our local news channel would put something out there to the public that is totally false. That Lindsay would not be paying her rent is a total lie.” I’m surprised Dina didn’t mention any of the following words: child, innocent, milkaholism, or lawsuit. Dina needs her f-cking head examined.

Screencap of Lohan’s crack tweets, courtesy of her Twitter.

http://twitter.com/LIndsayLohan

Yesterday we heard that Alec Baldwin had some sort of medical emergency, initially thought to be an overdose, for which his daughter called 911. He was rushed to the hospital, released shortly afterwards, and his rep called it all a “misunderstanding.” Kaiser speculated that Alec might have threatened to take some pills, had an Ambien, and then caused his daughter to worry when she went to check up on him. It turns out that Alec did have an Ambien, but that his daughter probably wasn’t even with him when she called 911. Fox News reports that “A source familiar with the situation now tells Fox411 that Ireland was not with her father in New York at the time of the 911 call.”

The NY Daily News has more, including the details that Alec and Ireland were fighting over the phone and that it was Alec’s ex wife, Kim Bassinger, who encouraged her daughter to call 911:

At 12:55 a.m. [Baldwin] was rushed to Lenox Hill Hospital after his 14-year-old daughter, Ireland, dialed 911, sources said.

“I’m tired of this,” Baldwin said, his daughter told the dispatcher. “I’m going to take some pills. I’m going to end this.”

When cops arrived at Baldwin’s pad on Central Park West, the actor told them he took an Ambien sleeping pill and had “no intention” of committing suicide, sources said.

Baldwin, who is due to emcee the Oscars on March 7, told cops he and Ireland had been arguing over the phone and that his daughter was “put up” to dial 911 by her mom, actress Kim Basinger, sources said.

Still, cops had Baldwin checked out and doctors released him after deciding he was no threat to himself, sources said.

When the “30 Rock” star returned home, he found reporters on his doorstep.

“This is another example of Kim’s sickness,” a buddy of Baldwin’s told the Daily News. “Alec came back from the hospital and there were cameras outside his house at 2 a.m. Gee, I wonder how they found out?”

Baldwin went to work at 7 a.m., and when he came home around 5:30 p.m. the reporters were still there.

[From The NY Daily News]

What’s more is that Baldwin is said to have flipped out at a paparazzo waiting for him outside his place in New York after he got off work at 5:30. Supposedly a photographer only “lightly tapped Baldwin on the arm,” and Baldwin yelled “Don’t touch me! I’m calling the cops!” Given the things that paparazzi shout at celebrities, the guy probably talked some smack before Baldwin yelled at him. It’s not like Baldwin launched into a tirade and his response sounds pretty normal given the situation. The NY Daily News doesn’t have much evidence of this on their website, and only has a video of a disheveled-looking Baldwin being led into his building by the doorman. There’s a photo at the top of the article, but it shows the photographer looking upset while Baldwin appears pretty calm. I saw some more photos on photo agency INF’s website, and Alec does look like he’s grabbing the photographer. The guy definitely has a well established anger management problem, but unless I saw the video I wouldn’t be able to judge if his response was over the top.

Was Baldwin’s ex out to give him a hard time or were his ex wife and daughter genuinely concerned for his well being? It’s hard to tell given their complicated, acrimonious history. The fact that Bassinger probably alerted the media doesn’t make it seem like she has Baldwin’s best interests at heart.

Alec Baldwin “attacking” the pap in New York on February 11, 2010. Credit: Mauceri/Donnelly/INFphoto.com

Damn, I had almost forgotten this happened. Back in October of 2008, Gerard Butler was charged with assault and battery for allegedly putting a beat-down on a paparazzo. The photographer claimed that Gerard pulled him out of his car and hit him in the face repeatedly with little to no provocation. Gerard’s side was that the guy was stalking him and driving recklessly, and that Gerard might have hit him once to get the guy off his tail. Something like that. Anyway, last May, Gerard was formally charged with a misdemeanor and it was announced that he could get up to six months in jail. Now an LA judge has dropped the charges against Gerry, thank God:

A Los Angeles judge has dropped charges against British actor Gerard Butler over a scuffle with a photographer after a premiere party in October 2008.

A court spokeswoman said a misdemeanour battery charge was dropped after the actor, 40, finished community service.

The incident took place on 7 October 2008 after Butler, the star of war epic 300 and romantic comedy Ugly Truth, left a party for his film RocknRolla.

He faced up to six months if convicted. His lawyer has declined to comment.

Mr Butler’s manager had said the star’s driver was forced to stop the car after the photographer raced through red lights, narrowly avoiding two pedestrians.

[From BBC]

It seems kind of sudden for the charges to be dropped right now, doesn’t it? Well, Now Magazine reports that Gerry’s lawyer and the photographer’s lawyer might have worked out a settlement out of court. A spokesperson for the LA City Attorney’s Office told E! News: “The matter was resolved with a dismissal as a result of a civil compromise. The defendant settled with the victim, and also completed 50 hours of community service, which we required. Everything has concluded.” Jesus! Gerard did 50 hours of community service without me noticing? I’m such a bad stalker. I wonder how much money Gerard had to pay the guy? Probably in the 6-figures, right?

In just one more Gerard Butler-related note, he’s been confirmed to present at the Golden Globes two weekends from now. I wonder if he’ll work out a little and try to look less like a dude who has spectacularly let himself go?

Gerard Butler in Barbados on January 3, 2010. Credit: INFphoto.com