Magazines go to war
over Britney's wedding

Plus: Rodman and Madonna’s wild times

By Jeannette Walls

msnbc.com contributor

updated 2:54 a.m. ET July 21, 2004

Looks like Britney Spears will have a little help footing her wedding bill.

The singer is said to be planning a super-lavish white wedding for this fall, and a source says a “wild bidding war” has erupted among celeb magazines for rights to publish the pics. A number of top U.S. mags are after the photo rights, says the insider, but some of them, such as People magazine, supposedly don’t engage in the practice of paying a celebrity directly — it’s considered checkbook journalism — so they’re working on ways around it.

There’s discussion, says that source, that a U.K. magazine such as OK! could pay Spears the big bucks, then the U.S. magazine would buy them from OK! “so People couldn’t be accused of checkbook journalism” says the insider.

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The source says it looks like bidding will easily pass the seven figure mark. “Catherine Zeta-Jones got more than a million for her wedding photos,” says the source, “and Britney’s much hotter.”

A spokeswoman for People magazine had no comment, and an OK! rep couldn't be reached. "We have received calls from all over the world," Spears' spokeswoman told The Scoop. "Nothing has been decided."

Not like a virgin
IMAGE: Rodman
Lucy Nicholson / Reuters file
Madonna — currently a wife, mother of two and an outspoken spiritual crusader — was quite the wild girl in her single days.

Anyone who needs a reminder of that gets one from her ex-flame, Dennis Rodman. The former Chicago Bulls star claimed that the "Like A Virgin" singer faked a photo shoot to lure him into bed.

“I was told Madonna wanted to see me. I walked down the hallway to her room and we made love,” Rodman — who dated Madonna in 1994 — told documentary makers, according to the Toronto Star. “After that she would call 10 times a day and say, ‘I want sex now, now, now!’ She’d want me to drop everything and have sex at the drop of a hat.”

Madonna’s rep wasn’t available for comment.

Notes from all over
IMAGE: Stewart
Rose Prouser / REUTERS
More than 17,000 Martha Stewart fans have signed a petition to President George W. Bush, asking him to pardon the convicted domestic diva. “Dear Mr. President,” begins the petition. “A terrible injustice has been done to Martha Stewart. Her only real crime was to be too successful, thereby eliciting the enmity of misguided and misinformed citizens who feel that she represents the face of corporate crime.” . . . Russell Crowe is feuding with an Aussie talent agent who claims to have created the star. “Martin Bedford has had little or nothing to do with my career, except by association,” Crowe said in a statement. “In the past couple of years he has gotten into the habit of trying to rewrite history to suit himself.” . . . Anthony Edwards first shot to fame in “Top Gun,” but the actor — who later went on to star in “ER” — has no fondness for the flick. “Everything I hate about Hollywood is embodied by that movie,” Edwards told the London Independent. “It’s the idea that you have to succeed at any cost. If you have to kill your best friend, that is OK, as long as you are the best fighter pilot. It’s a pure capitalism message gone mad. I guess I’m just an old peacenik, because I don’t believe you solve problems by killing people.”