As soon as the Rolling Stoner and his wife, Patti Hanson, pulled up in front of the New York theater in which the film was being screened, I'm told, six federal marshals surrounded his limo, guns drawn. People scattered, fearing a terrorist attack or -- worse -- a drug bust.

"It turned out that the limo was thought to have been stolen, but you should have heard the rumors at the theater," Richards told New York gossipist Baird Jones at the party after the screening at the Central Park Boathouse. "Patti and I were sitting in the theater trying to watch the movie and we could hear in the crowd behind us these gossips saying, 'Oh, isn't it a shame Keith is back on the smack? He barricaded himself in the limo shooting up. Then he became like a cornered wild beast when the cops came, so they just towed the car away. It was the only way to handle the situation safely.' We just turned around and said, 'Hey, you idiots, we are sitting right in front of you. Now shut up and let us watch the movie.'"

But, alas, Richards' and Hanson's presence at the afterparty didn't stop the rumors.

"People were pointing at Patti and me saying, 'Oh, look, Keith and Patti already made bail, and they came right back over to the party, boy, they never miss a party, do they, those two?'" he griped. "So finally I said, why fight it? And I was like, 'Yes, lads, it was quite a race against those marshals, but we shook them with a wild U-turn going a hundred miles an hour on the Bronx Parkway. But they could be after us here any minute, so keep your eyes peeled, I may have to jump in the lake and make another getaway. But I promise I will never give up alive.' And they are all patting me on the back, Lord knows what crime they think I have committed, maybe playing my guitar too loudly."

There's just no sympathy for the old devil.

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Or in the hospital

"We want to give these people a little glamour. And you cannot do that staying at home."

-- Mariah Carey on her patriotic performance for the U.S. troops stationed in Kosovo, to Reuters.

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Bing-bong

This whole he said/she said thing between Stephen Bing and Elizabeth Hurley just keeps getting uglier.

Now Hurley has issued a statement in response to Bing's statement refuting her statement that he is the father of her unborn child. (Got that?)

Bing is absolutely, positively the father of her child, the actress/model contends. She knows, she says, because he was the only partner she had in the 18 months they were seeing each other.

"I'm deeply distraught by Stephen Bing publicly declaring that he hadn't been in an 'exclusive relationship' with me," Hurley tells the BBC. "This was the first I had heard of this, and the implications are very painful, especially as I am shortly to give birth to his child."

Not only does she insist that she "loved Stephen enormously," she says, they were also "still very much happy together when I discovered I was pregnant."

Mr. Bing? I think it's your serve.

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Implant this

"People are constantly asking me about my exploding boob."

-- Joanie Laurer, the wrestler formerly known as Chyna, on the curiosity surrounding her most famous cosmetically enhanced asset, in the Calgary Sun.

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Swanky pets

Hilary Swank is a sucker for animal magnetism.

"My two dogs, cat, a parrot and a bunny are always in my contracts," the actress tells the Associated Press. "When I first got a lawyer after 'Boys Don't Cry,' she said, 'I just need to know what's your thing. Is it a chef? A trainer? A masseuse on set? What is it?' And I was like, 'Hmmm. My animals.'

"My animals complete me," Swank shares, in a true-blue "Jerry Maguire" moment. "I love them. They're my family."

They had her at hello.

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