When music hurts

Don Henley sued for maraca attack; David Hasselhoff gets bitchy. Plus: Anne Heche eating for two?

By Amy Reiter

Oct 17, 2000 | Don Henley may have nice maracas, but they've sure got one of the former Eagles frontman's fans all shook up.

Mary Ann Haley is suing Henley, claiming he smacked her on the forehead with his maracas and yelled at her in front of a startled crowd at a concert earlier this month in North Little Rock, Ark. Her camera flash, she alleges, set off the assault.

In a complaint filed Friday, Haley says the clonk on the block not only resulted in "physical injury" but also "caused highly unpleasant mental reactions including fright, horror, disappointment, chagrin, worry, disgrace, embarrassment, indignity, ridicule, grief, shame, humiliation, anger and outrage." (Cha-cha-cha.)

Local prosecutor Larry Jegley apparently greeted Haley's complaint with a few highly unpleasant mental reactions of his own. "That's not the silliest thing I've heard this year," Jegley told the Associated Press, "but it's definitely in the top 10."

Kick 'em when they're up. Kick 'em when they're down ...

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Ozzy and Harriet?

"I don't mix. I don't drink or get stoned anymore, so what's the point? I like to stay home and play with my dogs and my kids."

-- Ozzy Osbourne on his quiet, homebodyish post-Black Sabbath ways, in Movieline.

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Dr. Hasselhoff, I presume

Look out, George Clooney. David Hasselhoff's breathing down your neck.

"Goddammit, I should be in 'The Perfect Storm,'" he contends in the upcoming issue of Men's Journal. "Why am I not doing pictures like that? I don't get any credit for the work I've done."

What, you don't think he's had it so rough? I suppose you think it's easy to hang around in the sand, blowing the whistle at buxom babes all day? Hasselhoff harumphs: You just don't understand.

"Look at the roles I've had. I had to talk to a car," he says of his "Knight Rider" stint. "And how do you make 'Baywatch' work? Making 'Baywatch' work is immensely harder than having a fucking 'ER' script where a girl is dying in your arms of AIDS."

Hmmm. Methinks Dr. Jekyll is being overtaken by Mr. Hyde ...

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Juicy bits

Wowzers! Yet another possible explanation for Anne Heche's Fresno freakout is emerging. Could it have been a pregnancy-related hormonal surge? MSNBC's Jeannette Walls reports that she has it from "several sources" that Ellen DeGeneres's ex-squeeze is preggers -- and that the father is a man. The lucky fellow? "John Q." cameraman Coley Laffoon, who worked with Heche on a documentary about DeGeneres. Guess he got his shot.

Will Smith: All buffed up and no place to go? It's looking like Michael Mann's Muhammad Ali biopic, in preparation for which Smith has been assiduously working out, may be on the ropes. According to Variety, Sony Pictures is balking at the film's $105 million budget and may deliver a knockout punch. Then again, the trade reports, the studio may have to back off -- or risk losing Smith for the "Men in Black" sequel. That'd hit 'em where it counts.

Yoko Ono's rubber. You're glue. And she doesn't care at all if you and those other Beatles fans call her a "dragon lady." "I'm kind of honored to be a dragon lady," John Lennon's widow told New York Newsday. "The dragon is a very powerful, mythical animal -- well, probably they think I'm powerful, thank you very much." Wonder if she'd also thank you if you told her what you thought of her music ...

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