All Alex did in this case was to hire a plane to fly over California beaches towing a banner that said "REGGIE MILLER STOP PURSUING MARRIED WOMEN," which—let's be honest—makes Alex look worse than Reggie. Particularly because the woman in question, Ali Kay, is not married. But this is a step toward civility for Alex, according to the New York Post; in 2003, AVF caught an assault charge (later expunged!) for beating up a dude who tried flirting with Ali:

Von Furstenberg's victim, Rowen Seibel, said he was sitting in his car at around 1 in the morning when Alex — also in a car — put his vehicle in reverse and repeatedly slammed it into Seibel's, according to court papers.

Von Furstenberg then got out of his car, smashed Seibel in the face and head with his fist, threw him to the ground and kicked him, court papers allege.

So, progress! We hope this was not due to intimidation by Reggie Miller, though. He's no Anthony Mason.
[AVF pic: AP. Ali Kay pic via]

TMZ "obtained" the pics (from?) and, yes, you can see how perhaps it is not the sort of pic one would just send to your totally platonic favorite former basketball player (John Starks). Alex VF's canny ploy of flying a plane with a "REGGIE MILLER STOP PURSUING MARRIED WOMEN" banner over public beaches is certainly paying off, in terms of "number of Americans who have now seen sexxxy pics of his fiancee." We also hear some vague and still-unconfirmed rumors that Ali and Reggie maybe made a tiny bit of a love connection, at one point? But who knows? No way to tell, certainly, from these photos.

Alex von Furstenberg, the heir to the Diller empire, ladies and gentlemen.

Alex VF is Diane von Furstenberg's son, and now the presumptive heir of her new husband, IAC megamogul Barry Diller. He owns a surf shop in Malibu! Now what happened was that former Indiana Pacers star Reggie Miller, who by the way can totally blow me for beating the Knicks all those times, had some sort of little text message-based fling with Alex's fiancee, Ali Kay. The New York Post says their attraction was mutual, according to a lawyer, at least:

But fiancée Ali Kay sent two provocative photos of herself to the NBA announcer during a three-month phone flirtation, the former hoop star's lawyer Marty Singer insisted.

"There was one of her in bed and one with a bathing suit on," he said.

Pics or it didn't happen, Marty Singer. So! The average man, confronted with this situation, might 1) Break up with this girl; or 2) Keep this whole thing quiet, reasoning that the fact that one's fiancee is hot and heavy for a pro athlete is not something that reflects well on you, her ostensible man; but probably would not 3) File a restraining order against Reggie Miller, and then also hire a plane to fly over beaches in Southern California towing a banner that says "Reggie Miller Stop Pursuing Married Women."

But that is the course that Alex von Furstenberg chose to pursue! Strange also since his fiancee is not a "Married" woman! (However, as the Post points out, Alex was very "married to Duty Free heiress Alexandra Miller" — no relation to Reggie — when he first started dating young Ali.) But I guess that's just how Lakers fans do it! Barry Diller, your empire is in good hands.

There's one person apart from shareholder John Malone who stands to lose when IAC is broken up: Alex von Furstenberg, adopted son of the internet conglomerate's boss, Barry Diller. The shaved-headed socialite, Diane von Furstenberg's son by her first gay husband, will still inherit a large part of his adoring stepfather's fortune. But after IAC is divided into five, Alex von Furstenberg may have trouble securing the front-row seats at Lakers games that are such a mark of social status in Los Angeles, where von Furstenberg has lived since 2005. He's been relying on Diller's office to cadge tickets to the bastketball games from Ticketmaster, the online ticketing service which IAC is spinning off. The IAC boss will remain chairman of Ticketmaster after the split, but one peons still hopes Diller and his relatives will no longer be able to use the service as a personal favor bank.

I am an employee at Ticketmaster and there is one major reason that we are counting the days until we are spun off from Barry Diller's IAC. Alex von Furstenberg. Barry Diller's stepson demands front row seats to every Laker Game in LA. His request trumphs all other Laker ticket requests from our President, CEO, celebrities, or valuable clients. His sense of entitlement is far worse than people we like to give tix to like Jack Nicholson, and he hasn't even done anything to earn it! What makes it worse is when other Ticketmaster employees look at the court seats we give him (from their nosebleed seats), they are empty because he misses the game! He is the biggest spoilt brat on the West Coast.

It's not as if Diller has kept his sexuality such a secret.

Sure, he threatened Michael Wolff if the media columnist, then at New York magazine, wrote about his personal life. "No. I don't think you understand," he told Wolff. "I would kill you." And a memoir by a former escort who claimed to have bedded various members of Hollywood's gay mafia was expunged of all references by name to Diller; though a character nicknamed The Bear, bearing some resemblance to the compact tycoon, did make an appearance.

But, at least at the level of gossip, Diller's inclinations have been a staple for at least two decades among journalists, fellow media magnates, the gay establishment, and their catamites. Diller has done little, beyond vague threats to journalists and publishers, to dispel the rumors. The tycoon's donations to charity include many gay causes. His former yacht, the appositely named Black Sheep, regularly docked at Provincetown, the gay summer resort on Cape Cod. (See video.) Page Six even reported, three years ago, that the high-living mogul "partied" aboard the boat with Chris Beckman, a pretty boy from the Real World: Chicago.

Several authors have gone beyond mere implication. The Operator, Tom King's biography of David Geffen, the most open member of the velvet mafia, states baldly that Diller is gay. Both Geffen and Diller were immediately sought out by the press when Michael Ovitz, the once-mighty Hollywood agent, blamed a mysterious gay cabal for his professional demise. And Maer Roshan, ridiculing the discretion of known gay celebrities, referred in New York magazine to Diller's long-term relationship with a former editor-in-chief of The Advocate, the gay magazine.

So why does Diller bother? There seems little doubt that the IAC boss and Diane von Furstenberg are close friends; they have known eachother for decades. In the homophobic Hollywood of the 1970s, it was probably useful for Diller to confuse the issue of his personal life. His counterparts might suspect, or know; but there was enough contradictory information to prevent exposure by the press. That's now less of a reason for dissimulation, of course: the dam has broken; newspapers and magazines, facing competition from gossipy blogs such as this, are much less easily browbeaten by privacy-obsessed moguls; they can't afford to repeat the official line without looking craven. Diller's marriage to Diane von Furstenberg was described, even in the normally straight New York Times, as a "merger".

But there's one other reason for Diller's marriage of convenience, and it's quite touching. Diller has no children of his own. Diane von Furstenberg, and her children Alex and Tatiana, are the closest the solitary mogul has to family. Diller is said to be particularly fond of Diane's 38-year-old son, pictured left. "He really loves Alex," says someone who knows them both. Diller deeded Alex his house in Malibu on his first marriage (no word yet on what the wedding present will be for his second, to Ali Kay, disclosed in today's Page Six).

That's not the extent of Diller's financial support: Diller has already financed Diane von Furstenberg's fashion label; it is widely assumed that he will leave his fortune to Alex and his sister. Which provides an explanation for the merger, if not for the pretense of a wedding ceremony, so bogus that David Geffen refused to attend. Marriage, apart from presenting a front to conservative high society, does make it easier to avoid inheritance tax. Now Diller had better fend off his hostile shareholder, John Malone, and extract some value from IAC's languishing portfolio of internet businesses.

The gay billionaire, who marries his fag hag so that he can support her children: that's an uplifting narrative; it loses some of its dramatic power if the billions evaporate.