On one hand, the story is clearly marked as a sponsored item, so it's not deceptive. On the other hand, all the rest of the story's presentation, and its placement on the site, is identical to that of a normal Radaronline.com feature.

On the third hand, we here at Gawker run "sponsored" blog posts from time to time, which are (clearly marked) ads that go up with our other posts (but aren't usually written by staff writers). The same tactic is also practiced by print media, and raises grumbles sometimes when items are too similar to standard editorial stories. But as long as there's disclosure, it's generally recognized as a matter of taste more than ethics.

On the fourth hand, we now have a post about Radar's blog, and Radar's blog currently has a post up about Gawker! In this way, the whole blog world is one big clusterfuck of editorial cross-promotion, even when it's coincidental (and sometimes catty!). In the end readers will decide how much the ads on any site affect the credibility they give to it. If they get the feeling your site is shilling too relentlessly, you lose.

Is model-loving billionaire Ron Burkle's role in funding Radar worth mentioning here? Probably not.

In the Daily News' Rush & Molloy gossip column today, there was this about Dicaprio:

Leo? The good times find him. The other night, at a Chelsea club, an exquisite brunette glommed onto him. (Isn't that disgusting, guys?) But we're assured they did not exchange phone numbers.

Ha, but guess who was hanging on the other arm of that brunette? Ron Burkle, of course! An eyewitness tipster tells us that the 55-year-old rich white guy was on the other side of the girl with his hand on her leg, while she was simultaneously caressing Leo's head. Uh, kinky, I guess.

This behavior will do nothing to keep Burkle out of the gossip spotlight. Neither will his insatiable thirst for models. We also hear that not long after the Leo-brunette outing, Burkle scored a front row seat at the William Rast show at Fashion Week. After the show, "he hung around the "VIP area"
and mercilessly hit on May [Andersen]"—to the point that the model started calling people on her cell phone while Burkle stood there, just so she didn't have to talk to him.

Ron Burkle seems to lack a bit of grace. And good sense. Money can buy many things, but it will never buy him a face and body that can compete with Leonardo DiCaprio's. Nor will it buy a complete press blackout of all his high-flying partying. Although it's obvious that Burkle (along with some Jesse Jackson relatives) is interested in establishing a friendly media beachhead with Radar—we hear he went in for a meeting with those folks just last week.

It's not enough, Ron! You're uncontrollably drawn to models and parties. Either embrace that lifestyle publicly and accept the ridicule you'll get for it, or give it up. It's just like that unreachable fantasy featuring you, Leo, and that girl: you can't have it both ways.

Dressed in navy blue corrections department clothing, Mr. Follieri appeared unshaven and in need of a haircut. His sentencing was initially scheduled for Dec. 12, but his lawyer, Flora Edwards, asked the judge for an earlier date, saying that Mr. Follieri was having “a very difficult time” in the Metropolitan Detention Center...

“The game he played was not unique. It’s been done before,” Ms. Grubman said. “Planes, trains and automobiles are very sexy to anyone who is young.”

Follieri will be sentenced in October, and he's getting several years, at least. Let this be a lesson: don't fuck with the Pope.

[NYT]

Mr. Follieri's move toward a guilty plea comes despite some potential problems with the government's case. While prosecutors contend that Mr. Follieri overstated his Vatican ties to attract investors to his church real-estate deals, he did have some high-level connections in Rome. Last year, a Clinton spokesman said at least two senior Catholic Church figures had spoken up for Mr. Follieri, including Cardinal Angelo Sodano, who, as Vatican secretary of state, effectively ran church operations before retiring last year.

[WSJ]

Consider the man's history. Starting out as nothing more than a dude with a ridiculous hat, he worked his way up through the gossip muck to the top ranks of the New York Post. He had his own column called "Nightcrawler" for a time, and was a regular contributor to Page Six. He was living the life that the young man who first put on the stupid hat dreamed of living.

Then, of course, he tried to extort Burkle, and got publicly scandalized and tossed aside by the Post. He's quietly made his way back into the media with various projects, but nothing as high-profile since. And then last week some random guy decided to publicly release a (purported) tape of him having sex with JPS' wife. Damn.

People can bounce back from most scandals. In time, even the "Payola Six" affair—sensational though it was—would have receded into history. But JPS has never been able to bounce back, because his ongoing lawsuits and, now, alleged cuckolding cause the original damage to his reputation to keep getting rehashed.

So here's our gentle advice, JPS: the sympathy of the world has now, excruciatingly, returned to your side. Use it. Drop all of your various lawsuits against everyone involved in the Burkle mess—they'll ultimately do nothing but drain your bank account. Hold your head high, admit some wrongdoing in the past, and forge ahead. Disgrace is almost a foreign concept in the gossip world; schadenfreude does not run deep enough for people to say you deserved all of this. With an extended moment of grotesquely poor judgment and a run of very, very bad luck, most anyone in the New York media could be in your shoes right now. So get out there and make it, JPS—for all of us!

For sure, Radar's hacks have avoided the story of the "nuts" slip by Yusef's father, the Reverend Jesse. But it's not as if that's stifled the story, and Radar's silence merely draws further notice to the tangled connections between the magazine and its investors. It's a perfect excuse to explore Yusef Jackson's murky fortune.

The money for Yusef Jackson's investment in Radar comes from a highly profitable Chicago distributorship for Anheuser-Busch, the makers of Budweiser beer. And Yusef took possession of that cash-cow after meeting August Busch IV, heir to the beer fortune and now chief executive, at an event to promote black entrepreneurship in 1996. Their two fathers had clashed back in the 1980s, when Jesse Jackson's followers protested the lack of minority-owned Anheuser-Busch distributorships.

A couple of years later, the beer-maker assuaged restive minority workers at one of its biggest Chicago affiliates by offering the business to the Reverend's son. And who made the reconciliation between the Jackson and Busch dynasties possible? Why California supermarket tycoon Ron Burkle, of course, host of the event at which the two scions met.

The younger Busch and Burkle also both bankrolled Yusef's first media venture, a dotcom bubble website called OneNetNow.com, which was supposed to bring more minorities to the internet. The billionaire grocer and Yusef also teamed up to bid for the right-wing Chicago newspaper, the Sun-Tribune.

Burkle's munificence—from a fortune built on low-paid supermarket workers—has even extended to the once-fiery Reverend's extended family. The wealthy Friend-of-Bill, whom Jackson has helped maintain labor peace at his supermarkets, helped house the Reverend's illegitimate child by Karin Stanford, and put the mother on his payroll. One doesn't like to agree too often with Bill O'Reilly, but he's probably justified in calling Burkle the "sugar daddy" of the Jackson family.

All of which is to say: money and favors are exchanged just as eagerly by members of the liberal elite as by the conservatives who have traditionally monopolized business in the US. If anything though, they are even more prone to make vanity investments, such as Yusef Jackson's in Radar, as if they imagine this is what rich people do.

"If Bush can be president, why can't Yusef and Jonathan have a distributorship?" Jesse Jackson told critics at a meeting of the Chicago Association of Black Journalists in 2001, with a wonderful sense of entitlement. Yusef is as much entitled to as much help from family friends as the heir to any white dynasty; to any distributorship he can secure; and to any magazine he's foolish enough to fund. And with that privilege also comes the occasional item such as this, calling into question the origins of his fortune, and his motives as a media investor.

Radar's website has studiously ignored the day's hottest story—just as it sidestepped the juicy revelations about conman Raffaello Follieri's relationship with supermarket billionaire Ron Burkle, and the Hollywood rumors of an affair between actress Gina Gershon and former president Bill Clinton.

Burkle's involvement in the pop culture magazine has never been acknowledged, but he joined Yusef in a bid for the Chicago Sun-Times in 2004—and Radar's unusual discretion in covering stories about the California tycoon and his buddy Bill pretty much confirm the creepy Burkle is in Yusef's consortium. "It's fair to say the restrictions that come with Radar's funding are getting more inconvenient," says a veteran of the magazine. Radar's Maer Roshan did not respond to a request for comment.

One shouldn't give too hard a time to Radar, however. It's not as if New York magazine made any mention of financier Bruce Wasserstein's marriage breakup earlier this week. Every publication has investors it can't afford to offend; it's just that Radar has had a lot of them, and it really can't afford to offend them.

Update: Maer Roshan did indeed respond, with a zinger!

Q. Hey, Maer — where's your Jesse Jackson "nuts" piece? (In the same place as all the Burkle coverage?) ;)

A. Actually, it's in the same place as our item on you going down on a go-go boy at Urge on Thursday night.. But while we're on the subject, have I missed Gawker's coverage of the Jezebel fiasco?

It's all these Clinton-friending liberal rich people who keep getting into messes these days, isn't it? When's the last time you heard anything about rich Republican financiers and executives flying about the nation with models, fucking teenagers, and carrying on sex orgies with movie stars? Is it the liberal connection to godless Hollywood? Former United Artists CEO and Bush Super Ranger Jerry Weintraub stays out of the headlines. Ken Lay was busted for fraud, not massages.

Hell, maybe liberals just have more fun? That's the point of liberality, isn't it? Those European values, that subjective morality, the godless thing? Clinton was impeached for having too much fun in office. Nixon never had fun ever except when he got zonked on painkillers and insulted the Jews, which is not really anyone's idea of a truly good time. Epstein never saw anything wrong with what he did. He just likes massages!

But why the need to congregate around Burkle? To hang out with him? Why did Epstein and Chris Tucker need to fly around on Jeff's private jet? Why does Clinton need to fly around the world on everyone's private jet? Liberal types do like to improve the world, and the rich ones are narcissistic enough to believe that they can do it personally. So they network and party and fuck models while flying to Africa to cure AIDS! Conservative zillionaires just rack up huge profits, contribute money to candidates who can ensure that they'll continue to rack up huge profits, and mind their own fucking (criminal) business. The liberals need to have cake with Arianna Huffington and Bono, for some reason.

So it may just be that Burkle embodies these characteristics the most. The most narcissistic, the most convinced of his own rightness, the most desperate to network with powerful people in the hopes of reshaping the world.

And then they all get tied up in sex scandals and your house is foreclosed, the end.

Follieri's story is different, really, because while the other rich actress- and model-dating horndogs find themselves in hot water for whoring and partying, Follieri's facing jail time for pretending to be the most pious motherfucker in New York. He boasted of imaginary connections to the Catholic Church to scam money from investors that he needed to keep up his lifestyle of being a the perfect wealthy, charitable Catholic.

As the Church faced fallout from the child abuse scandal, Follieri stepped up to help them unload their real estate properties and convert them into morally agreeable businesses. He hired the nephew of of the Vatican's secretary of state and went around claiming to be a "representative for the Vatican." But Follieri's only real connection to the church was a guy who could arrange to get him a tour of the garden every now and then. But the scam worked! Thanks, as always, to how easily duped the self-righteous rich can be.

While his love life with Anne was flourishing, in 2005 Raffaello found his most high-profile partners for the Follieri Group yet. That year, he became friends with Doug Band, a young aide to former President Bill Clinton. Doug, who was often seen cavorting with Raffaello in Manhattan restaurants like Nobu and Cipriani, served as a matchmaker. He introduced Raffaello to a Canadian real estate developer named Michael Cooper, a meeting for which Raffaello paid $400,000. More importantly, Doug introduced him to Bill Clinton and his close personal friends, including supermarket magnate and billionaire Ron Burkle. In April 2005, Ron formed a joint venture with Raffaello, called Follieri/Yucaipa Investments, to develop unused Catholic properties. Ron pledged $105 million to help his new business partner in this pursuit. One year later, Raffaello made his own significant donation, pledging $1 million to the Clinton Global Initiative, a charity founded by the former president. This move gave Raffaello a chance to spend more time with one of the most influential men in the world, and he seized the opportunity to vacation with Clinton in Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. In a picture taken at that time, Raffaello has his arm draped around Bill Clinton on one side and Anne Hathaway on the other. Everyone is smiling for the camera. ­Raffaello seemed to have it all: fame, success, money, friendship, the perfect girl.

Doug Band! You may remember him as Bill Clinton's guy Friday, who has a terrible habit of introducing the former president to complete scumbags and then also failing to keep Bill's own behavior in check.

By 2007, Burkle was suing Follieri for misappropriation of that million dollars. Because Follieri used it to pay for his penthouse and his lavish lifestyle, which he needed to keep up appearances as a successful friend of the Vatican. It really all would've been easier if he'd actually just made connections at the Vatican and managed real estate for them for real, right? But the one time they tried to do this, with a church in Philadelphia, it burned down and they sold it for no profit.

But once the Burkle suit was settled and the jet company sued him and the NYPD arrested him for bouncing a check and the PR company sued him and his foundation's only employee quit AND it became apparent that Andrew Cuomo was going to indict him, you would think actress Anne Hathaway would've given up on him? Or that he would've given up on his scam? Not so much.

So yes, it was an audacious and impressive lie that he lived, but it looks for all the world like he actually bought into it himself.

The feds are the ones who charged Follieri, and it was also the feds, working with Burkle, who investigated Stern for allegedly attempting to sell Burkle better treatment in his tabloid. Burkle recorded a meeting with Stern to build the extortion case, but nothing came of it: Though reports of the meeting ended up all over the media, the feds never charged Stern with a crime.

The fact that there's now a federal charge against Follieri would seem to indicate Burkle was not as forgiving as he might have seemed; it's hard to imagine the feds moving forward with a case without the cooperation of the managing partner of the key victim. That makes Burkle's face time with Follieri all the more suspicious.

If Burkle is setting up Follieri, the Italian businessman's attorneys are likely to highlight everything potential embarrassing about Burkle at trial, e.g. his penchant for hanging out with teenaged girls, and anything potentially embarrassing about his relationship with Bill Clinton, whose wife is a sensitive point in her political career. But Burkle seems to like him some revenge, and airing old laundry is, perhaps, a small price to pay, in his eyes.

[WSJ]

Stern promises to appeal the ruling, first off. Which will be fun. And Stern is still suing his former employers at the New York Post! In Florida. Because Stern's lawyer Larry Klayman is a conservative political activist who keeps suing the Clintons over and over again, so now he's only only allowed to argue cases in Florida, Pennsylvania, and D.C.. Maybe some sun will do Stern good?

And hey, Stern should still look on the bright side. His life may be in shambles, but at least he's not one of the two former Page Six contributors currently in jail for statutory rape or theft. He's not even reduced to writing for Gawker! (Anymore.)

The supermarket magnate introduced Gershon and Clinton at some dinner party. Poor Burkle. Now he'll never get that open invitation to the corridors of power!

Burkle sat down with L.A. Weekly for a lengthy and revealing interview just before the VF story went up, and for a guy who has billions of dollar and fucks whomever he likes on his private jet, he's a defensive sad-sack and depressingly un-self-reflective.

The billionaire seemed sincere in his fondness for Clinton, and although he didn’t say it outright, Burkle seemed offended by the idea that he used Clinton simply to make more billions. Burkle, though, apparently forgot statements he made to Forbes. In a December 11, 2006, piece titled “The Rise of Ron Burkle,” the billionaire described Clinton’s post-presidency work for Yucaipa as “invaluable,” noting, “My best call in corporate America isn’t one-hundredth of what President Clinton is just picking up the phone and saying, ‘Hey, we’ve got this idea, want to come talk about it?’”

Burkle also reveals more about the odd Page Six extortion scandal that made him a Gawker Celebrity. The basic story: Page Six realized that Bill's association with a swingin' billionaire conincided nicely with the Post's unspoken political aims, and they began insinuating many things about Ron and Bill. Then, either Burkle met with Page Six writer Jared Paul Stern to arrange a truce and was then extorted, or he lured Stern to a meeting by offering to fund his clothing company. Then he accused Stern of extortion and got him fired. No charges were ever filed.

It was all part of Burkle's attempt to get to Rupert Murdoch, a billionaire with the kind of power and political acumen Burkle wishes he had. Amusingly, Burkle's attempt to get the Post to be nice to him and Bill probably had the opposite effect. While Hillary made successful inroads toward courting Rupert during her Senate run, the Post (and Rupert) quickly returned to Clinton-bashing form as she began to lose to upstart Barack Obama. Of course, according to Ron, if he really cared about that sort of thing he'd just call his good buddy Rupe up on their Red Billionaire Phones:

Burkle openly admits he’s hardly above trying to manipulate the media. He says Stern is wrong about the details of their dustup, and that if he really wanted to get to Murdoch, he would merely have called him up — billionaire to billionaire — and “cut a deal.” In fact, Burkle says, “Murdoch wishes he made a deal.”

And then him and Richard Branson and Warren Buffet would go out for ice cream.

Now Burkle would like to be a go-between for Hillary and Obama but neither Hillary nor Obama actually like him, so whatever. He still has lots of money, though, and the general election is young!

"The editor of Esquire— he sent us an email yesterday and said it was the single sleaziest piece of journalism he'd seen in decades. He said it made him want to go take a shower and he was embarrassed to be a journalist when he read it."

"You know he didn't use a single name, cite a single source in all those things he said. It's just slimy. It's part of the national media's attempt to nail Hillary for Obama. It's the most biased press coverage in history. It's another way of helping Obama. They had all these people standing up in this church cheering, calling Hillary a white racist, and he didn't do anything about it. The first day he said 'Ah, ah, ah well.' Because that's what they do— he gets other people to slime her. So then they saw the movie they thought this is a great ad for John McCain— maybe I better quit the church. It's all politics. It's all about the bias of the media for Obama. Don't think anything about it."

So, just to recap: Clinton utterly trashed a reporter based on a story Clinton had never read; dragged a competing editor into the fight based on a private email (that he may or may not have quoted accurately); then insinuated without substantiation that Obama pushed a preacher to make racial remarks about Hillary Clinton. It's getting hard to keep track of who, exactly, is sliming who with poorly-checked facts.

[Huffington Post]

Ron Burkle
Relation to Bill Clinton: They became friends back in 1992 because both were self-made men who came from nothing and now could have sex with anyone they wanted. Burkle, a wealthy supermarket magnate, gave Bill a job after Bill left the White House.
Sexual Misadventures: "Good friends" with Gisele Bundchen! Also, flies around on his private jet with random NYU girls.
Net Worth: $3.5 billion.
Youngest known special friend: The NYU girl supposedly on Air Burkle with President Bill is supposedly 19. The lady Burkle was with in the VF story was also 19! (He gets older, they stay the same age.)

Steve Bing
Relation to Bill Clinton: Bing is a big donor to the Democratic party. Also, he has a private jet that Bill likes to ride on!
Sexual Misadventures: Well. There was a paternity fight with Elizabeth Hurley. And another with the ex-wife of billionaire Kirk Kerkorian.
Net Worth: Around $1 billion.
Youngest known special friend: Unknown!

Jeffrey Epstein
Relation to Bill Clinton: Unclear! We know he once flew Bill Clinton, Kevin Spacey, and Chris Tucker to Africa on his jet, once. That was before the various lawsuits and allegations, obv.
Sexual Misadventures: Well. He enjoyed massages. From underaged ladies! He was sued by a trangendered woman who claimed he made her his sex slave. Another anonymous lady is suing him for sexually assaulting her.
Net Worth: Totally unknown. We will accept guesses and estimates.
Youngest known special friend: 14. Yeesh.
Distinguishing characteristic of penis: Allegedly egg-shaped.

Bill Clinton
Relation to Bill Clinton: Is Bill Clinton.
Sexual Misadventures: Sued for sexual harassment by Paula Jones, accused of assault by two other women. Clinton admitted to one extramarital affair with Gennifer Flowers, and, well, there was that Monica Lewinksky thing.
Net Worth: $10-50 million (w/ Hillary)
Youngest known special friend: Well, Monica was 22.
Distinguishing characteristic of penis: Allegedly bent.

Steve Bing, whose colorful private life includes fathering a child out of wedlock with the actress Elizabeth Hurley and suing the billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian for invasion of privacy, alleging that private investigators for Kerkorian swiped Bing's dental floss out of his trash in a successful effort to prove that Bing's DNA matched that of a child delivered by Kerkorian's ex-wife, the former tennis pro Lisa Bonder.

Now. There isn't any proof that Bill's been engaging in his usual sexual escapades since he left the White House. But he's certainly been associating with colorful characters, and clearly not giving a shit about (or even noticing) the appearance of impropriety. Ron Burkle's his best bud, why shouldn't he fly around on "Air Fuck One" with various young models and NYU students?

ANYWAY the problem is that Clinton's "counselor," or his top aide, or his "butt boy," is this guy Doug Band, who is quite good at making sure Clinton gets to work on time but really not very good at keeping him away from bad influences.

The story (written by Todd Purdum, husband to former Clinton press secretary DeeDee Myers), also lists nearly every woman Clinton has been associated with since he left office, from Gina Gershon to that Canadian parliament member to some lady on an elevator. Naturally, Clinton's office wasn't too happy with the piece.

(Oddly, Radar has not mentioned this story!)

(BTW, Ron Burkle owns Radar)

The story of former Page Six scribe Jared Paul Stern and creepy supermarket billionaire/attempted modelizer Ron Burkle is being ripped from the headlines of two years ago for an upcoming episode of Law & Order. Daily News gossiper Ben Widdicombe reports that The Daily Show's Mo Rocca will play Stern. In real life, Burkle (who secretly owns Radar magazine and is a constant embarrassment to his bestest bud Bill Clinton) never did back up his claim that Stern had extorted him for $100 grand in exchange for powder-puff coverage, ended up the subject of even more bad press, and is now a defendant in a defamation suit brought by Stern that may well add to his humiliations. On TV, Stern will be dispatched with extreme prejudice.

"But—spoiler warning—things don't turn out so well for him. According to the source, in the fictionalized version the gossip is killed when his car is wired with a bomb." [Gatecrasher]

Reached for comment, Stern gave us some plot rumors of his own: "I hear that Burkle is being played by John Goodman. He goes to jail in the end—just like he will in real life—becomes the sweetheart of Cellblock C and finally gets to empathize with all those teenagers who found themselves face-down in the back of [his private jet] 'Air Force Two.'"

"I decided to go forward and talk to the IRS about Ron Burkle and all the Machiavellian connections and all the monies and cash exchanged between Ron Burkle and his big buddy Bill Clinton," she says. Burkle, who likes to fly around on private jets and flirt icky-old-man-style with much younger women has been such a headache for Clinton while his wife is trying to run for President that he had to pretend to cut all ties with the man.

Next, McClintock touches on the subject of Eliot Spitzer and prostitutes, which reminds her of something about Burkle and Clinton. Something you can watch here.

The reported deal was that Clinton would receive $20 million for ending his partnership in Burkle's Yucaipa. But it turns out, according to Bill's spokesman, that he won't actually take this deal unless his wife ends up as the Democratic nominee for President. It's apparently not a scandal until then?

Maybe that idle speculation by some pundits that Bill is—subconsciously or intentionally—sabotaging Hillary's campaign has some merit. Why would he want to quit riding Air Burkle?

Clinton Hedges [NYSun]

Ron Burkle, seen in the company of models like Gisele Bundchen since he separated from his wife, is a key member of Clinton's billionaire boy's club. (Former member: teen-massage-loving Jeffrey Epstein.) We don't really believe Hollywood's autumn rumor that the former president, notorious for receiving oral sex in the Oval Office, had entertained an actress on Ron Burkle's plane. (That was probably just an amalgam of Clinton's supposed affair with raunchy actress, Gina Gershon, and earlier pictures of the ex-president with girls on the Burklejet.)

Nobody really cares about Burkle's ties to foreign governments, apart from a few right-wing obsessives. It's Burkle's ties to pretty women that represent the real embarrassment, and threat to Bill Clinton's image as a reformed husband, or at least a more discreet reprobate. With Hillary Clinton in a battle for the Democratic nomination, her husband does not need a billionaire modelizer as a friend.

Mantra Films, Inc. Announces Florida State Attorney Steve Meadows Charged with Prosecutorial Misconduct in Court Filing Today [PR Inside]

That DWI conviction for Grappi was in Texas, way back in 1982.

If one consolidates all the reports, she is possibly named Chevyn Hurwitz Grappi McClintock Getty—although sometimes she takes a middle initial of N., and sometimes her first name is spelled as "Chevryn," and the "Getty" only arises from Page Six's claim that she married Christopher Getty.

The Daily News reports that Grappi met Burkle when she decorated his Beverly Hills residence. McClintock's website mentions the "historic Greenacres estate" among the "notable interior environments" she's been responsible for.

Grappi doesn't mention, however, that she filed for individual bankruptcy in Los Angeles in 1998 and then again in 2003 in San Antonio, TX. Grappi's website mentions her organization, "Corporate Wives," which she created "to address the very important home, lifestyle, and personal needs of affluent individuals...The objective is personal estate management to create an atmosphere impeccably designed and maintained."

Besides the fact that a more apt title would apparently be "Corporate Mistresses," Grappi wouldn't exactly be our first pick (were we affluent individuals) to manage our personal estates. In the late 90s, Grappi was taken to court over nearly $60,000 in debt owed to various creditors. Given that address records show Grappi has spent the last two years residing at various upscale hotels like The Carlton and Wall Street's The Regent, we wouldn't be surprised if cash was a little tight at the moment. Perhaps now would be a good time to take a supermarket mogul to the cleaners!

McClintock did not respond to a voicemail message and an email this morning.

Borrowing Up [Page Six]

There are not one but two items on Radar today about Johnson, one about the Grig slur and another pointing to Johnson's seeming favor-trading with Joe Francis, who he may have witnessed getting up to his rapey old tricks at Johnson's bachelor party.

Days before Johnson's April 8, 2006, nuptials to Sessa von Richthofen, Johnson and crew were crashed out in the living room of Francis's $25 million, 13-bedroom estate in Punta Mita, Mexico, nursing hangovers when the porn auteur came home and disappeared into a bedroom with a young woman. Eyewitnesses say later that morning the young woman burst out of Francis's boudoir, groggy, crying, and yelling, "That motherfucker raped me!" She staggered off saying her boyfriend in Oklahoma was a lawyer who would "sue the fuck out of" Francis.

Johnson and fellow revelers were left dumbstruck. But Francis—who has been accused of procuring underage prostitutes, promoting sexual performances from children, drug trafficking, racketeering, and rape—was quick to calm their nerves. "Guys, relax," he told Johnson and others, according to witnesses. "We're in Mexico."

Previously: Dispatch From The Gossip Wars