Tara Reid keeps
putting foot in mouth

Plus Elton John, George Michael feuding

Frazer Harrison / Getty Images

Tara Reid can be her own worst enemy.

By Jeannette Walls

msnbc.com

updated 2:43 a.m. ET Dec. 15, 2004

Tara Reid’s campaign to clean up her image just took a step backwards.

The hard-partying, wardrobe-malfunctioning “American Pie” star has been loudly bemoaning a spate of bad press recently, and even sent a gift basket to the New York Post’s Page Six after the gossips there ran an item calling her “demurely dressed and completely cogent.”

Now, Reid has given an interview in which she brags about dancing on tabletops, driving at 130 miles an hour, calls herself “cheesy” and “gaudy,” and uses slang for Italians that many in the Italian-American community find offensive.

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“I love to drive fast, and I’ve been lucky, because I’ve never really been pulled over,” Reid told Stuff magazine for its January issue. “Recently, I was driving my Porsche convertible on this empty freeway, and this cop pulls next to me. I think, [Bleep.] I’m gonna get a ticket. And he asks, ‘How fast can you burn?’ And I say, ‘Maybe 100.’ I wasn’t sure how to answer, you know? Then he says “Do you want to go faster?” and he just let me go to the end of the freeway as fast as I wanted. I went 130.”

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You tell us: Is Tara Reid classy or trashy?

Regarding her partying image, Reid says, “Don’t get me wrong — I love to dance on a table every once in a while. I like to work hard and play hard. Fun and I go hand-in-hand.”

And regarding her personal style, Reid uses some phrases bound to upset both Italians and New Jerseyites: “I am such a Jersey girl. I am totally cheesy at heart. I’m gaudy; I like wearing tchotchke jewelry; I like cheesy guido music.”

Wham!
IMAGE: George Michael
Luis Martinez / AP
A catfight has broken out between George Michael and Elton John.

The diva imbroglio started when the Rocket Man blasted Michael’s new album saying, “George is in a strange place. There seems to be a deep-rooted unhappiness in his life and it shows on the album. All I would say to George is: you should get out more.”

The former Wham man fired back, saying that John was paying too much attention to the “gay grapevine.”

In an open letter in U.K.’s Heat magazine, Michael wrote, “Sadly, I was always aware that Elton’s circle of friends was the busiest rumour mill in town, and that respect for my privacy was not exactly guaranteed. And to this day, most of what Elton thinks he knows about my life is pretty much limited to the gossip he hears on what you would call the ‘gay grapevine.’ Other than that, he knows that I don’t like to tour, that I smoke too much pot, and that my albums still have a habit of going to number one. In other words, he knows as much as most of my fans do.”

Notes from all over
IMAGE: Jackson
Pool / Reuters
Michael Jackson is “hugely relieved” that he and Scott Peterson lawyer Mark Geragos parted ways, says a source who has worked with the singer. “He watched the [guilty] verdict with great interest,” says the insider. . . .Dionne Warwick claims that Pope John Paul II's favorite Christmas song is “Silver Bells.” She’s been asked to sing it for him four times. . . . Donald Trump sure has some stunning insights into female types. “There’s nothing I love more than women, but they’re really a lot different than they’re portrayed,” Trump notes on his Web site. “They are far worse than men, far more aggressive, and boy, can they be smart.”