Days started floating by in a hazy fog, and, before I knew it, my broken heart became a bitter and spiteful place to be. These were pretty dark times for me and had it not been for all my wonderful friends and co-workers, I don’t know how I would have made it through. News travels fast and it wasn’t long before the British tabloid, News of the World, got wind of the story. They called and offered me one hundred thousand dollars to do a story with them. My agent urged me to take it, probably because she was getting ten percent and saw it as a nail in the coffin for this whole Sly saga she had been hearing about for so long. I saw it as a good exit fee for all my lonely nights and this broken heart I was lugging around. With a bit of guilt in the back of my throat, I agreed to do it.
I sat down for lunch in a café in Venice on a warm afternoon with a reporter named Kenelm Jenour. He looked like he was straight out of a James Bond movie and I felt all sorts of undercover meeting him all the way near the beach. I remember I was hardly able to eat my salad and I must have had five diet cokes, I was so nervous. He asked me a series of incredibly personal questions and on more than one occasion I wanted to go to the bathroom, slip out the back door, and make a run for it. It took three hours to finish the interview. The pay check smoothed things over for me and acted as a shot of Novocain to my heart, but money wasn’t going make all of this go away.
A few days later, Sly called - only after hearing I had done the interview, no doubt. He was pissed beyond all belief. I could hardly comprehend his anger and it was so over the top I actually found it amusing. I liked feeling the tables turned. I liked to hear him squirm on the other end of the line.
“Is it true you did a story on me?” he asked.
“No. It was about us. I didn’t say anything that was bad or untrue,” I said.
“You call them right now and you cancel the story.”
“Or what?” I said. I was no longer in the mood to be told what to do and I almost wanted to laugh at his desperation over the phone.
“You will never work with anyone in this town. I will have you blacklisted from every club and every casting office,” he said.
I also wasn’t in the mood to be threatened. At this point, I hung up the phone and felt I had made a small victory for myself. His true colors were showing through and that hundred grand was feeling a little sweeter than it had before.
Over the next few days, I received threatening phone calls from his Mafioso friends, but I just laughed. I knew he would never do anything to hurt me because that, too, would end up plastered across a tabloid. One message in particular really cracked me up; I even invited a few friends over to listen to it. Sly hissed over the answering machine, “If you don’t kill the story, I will send tapes of you and another girl to Playboy.” I laughed and asked my girlfriends, “What is he thinking? That would only make things worse and confirm the tabloids’ truth.” He may have been charming, but he wasn’t the smartest man I ever knew.
I started to put Sly behind me, and the idea of dating again, though slightly daunting, was incredibly exciting. My career was on a steady climb and I had a clan of gorgeous girlfriends to take on the city with. I was like a kid in a candy store and the future was looking bright. I had been approached by countless musicians and celebrities asking me out all the time, but I always turned them down because I was dating Sly; silly me.
The Close Call
I was sitting in the waiting room of my dermatologist’s office, watching the angelfish swim circles in the large tank against the wall. They were so peaceful and so beautiful, what a life, I thought. It seemed like everywhere I went in these few weeks, there was an issue of the tabloid featuring that stupid story about Sly and I. I had just picked one up and started reading it when they called my name. All the girls in the office knew me quite well and even before the stories came out they all knew I was dating Sly. I confided in my dermatologist the way most would a real doctor or a therapist. I considered us friends and, for some reason, I considered it confidential. It had to have been his white lab coat or his calming demeanour, but I told him nearly every-thing.
I was sitting in the room, waiting for the doctor. I hated the way it was always so cold and the plants didn’t seem to mind, but I was only wearing a t-shirt. The walls were painted this strange shade of aquamarine and I had fallen into some thought about the color and redecorating my apartment when the doctor walked in.
“Hey, what’s new? What are we having done today?” he asked.
“I’m due for my Botox injections, but I’m a bit worried if I should get them because I am a few days late for my period,” I said.
“Really? We may be having a little Sly baby are we?” he asked, all too excited.
I was late, but I hadn’t given much thought to actually having a baby. I think mostly because I didn’t want to think about Sly all that much.
“Well, that certainly would be a huge unexpected surprise. I’m not at all sure,” I said. I was trying to back pedal the conversation and I couldn’t remember why I had said anything at all.
We went ahead with a facial and skipped the Botox for now. He recommended I go get a pregnancy test right away, because early stages are crucial in making the right decisions. I didn’t go get a test that day because I had a lunch date with Heather at the Rainbow Room and I seriously needed to talk to her about this.
The next morning, I was groggy and wandering around my apartment while the coffee slowly brewed, when the phone rang. It was early for phone calls, so the sound sent me on edge and I picked up the phone, worried something was terribly wrong. It was Sly on the other end sounding distressed and nervous. He begged me to please come up to his house right away and that he needed to speak with me.
Maybe I wasn’t in the mood to argue, or it was his desperate tone over the phone, but I felt genuinely concerned and I jumped in my car and sped over there. Upon arrival, he appeared to be fine, and I was irritated I had left my morning coffee for no doubt another argument.
“What could possibly be so urgent?” I asked. I was no longer in the mood to play games.
“Are you pregnant?” he asked and I stopped in my tracks.
“What?” I said. I was in shock and I could feel anger bubbling up inside me; I hated the personal intrusion. “Where did you hear such a thing?”
“Someone called Star magazine yesterday to report you were pregnant and called my agent to confirm,” he said.
All the pieces fell into place and I saw the whole story play out in my mind. It had to have been my dermatologist or at least someone from his office. How could they do this to me? I had thought they were my friends. It was one of those learn hard way type of things, but at the time it really hurt. I couldn’t dwell on it, though, there were bigger problems at hand.
“So, you think you may be?” he asked desperately.
“Maybe, I don’t know yet, but yes there is a chance I am,” I said. Sly and I never used condoms; he always just pulled out in time, not the most effective birth control option.
With that, he ran upstairs and came back down dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and a baseball cap.
“Is that a disguise?” I asked, laughing for the first time.
He did not find it funny and snapped, “Let’s go. Get in the car.”
The bodyguard drove us down to a drug store on Van Nuys in Sherman Oaks. Sly rushed me into the drug store, practically dragging me by the arm into the women’s hygiene section. I was still amused by his disguise.
“Which one works best?” he asked. I could see the panic growing in his eyes.
“I don’t know, it’s not like I use them all the time.”
As we quipped back and forth about which one to buy, two older women spotted him out, saying, “hey that’s Sylvester Stallone,” and then the other one, “Who is he with?” and then the first one said, “I don’t know, but they’re buying pregnancy tests.”
I always thought it was funny how loudly people spoke of Sly out in public as if he couldn’t hear them or as if he
wasn’t really there. Undeterred by the old women, Sly grabbed every type of pregnancy test off the shelf and hur-ried me to the cash register.
“It’s a good thing you wore that disguise,” I said trying to hide a giggle.
“This isn’t funny, it’s very serious,” he said, scolding me like my father.
“I know,” I said, “but why are you so upset? What if I am pregnant? Then what?” I was taunting him, trying to torture him. It was nice to see he was still human.
“I guess I’ll be daddy then, won’t I?” he mumbled under his breath and handed the woman at the register his credit card. I got a bit choked up by the response and gave him a big hug, but he wasn’t in the mood for reconciliations just yet. I always knew he was a great father. His son Sage was always there on the weekends and I so admired the bond they shared. Sly would light up around him. Sage suffered from a growth problem and Sly was always vigilant in administering HGH injections each night before bedtime. Such a dedicated father. There was never a doubt that he would be a wonderful father.
When we pulled in the driveway, Kevin was standing at the door looking all sorts of concerned. “The studio called and they need you back on the set now,” he said with the most urgency I had ever seen him have. Sly was filming Stop or My Mom Will Shoot, at the time.
We rushed up to the master bedroom and I had to chug two glasses of water and wait about fifteen minutes before I had to pee enough to take all three of the tests he had bought. When I came out of the bathroom, the tests were laid on the counter waiting to reveal their results, different lines and colors about to possibly change our lives forever.
Sly held me close and told me that no matter what the results were, he would take care of me and we would work everything out. He kissed my forehead and called me Baby Love. Just knowing that he could be alright with this made me feel suddenly important to him and I thought that maybe a part of both of us wanted me to be pregnant. He never asked me once if it was his, or if I was sure about everything. I think he kept such tight tabs on me that he had no reason to question, but even still, it made me feel all the more safe in his arms again.
The first test came up negative and I felt a great relief with a slight disappointment. The other two tests were negative, as well. I had no idea I would feel so sad, and seeing the relief on his face only made me feel worse. It was such a strange moment, but with that relief, everything that had transpired between us just melted away and he began to kiss me passionately. It felt so good to be with him again, I threw all my progress to the wind and let him take me. He tore my clothes off and made love to me right there. I think he was trying to assure himself and myself that everything could be normal again. He held me close and every thrust was a bit gentler than before. This time, when he finished, he kissed me for what felt like hours.
“You know we should really be more careful. Aren’t you on the pill?” he asked.
“I am,” I said, “it must be stress or something that is throwing me off, I don’t know.”
“What about that doctor? I don’t want you seeing him anymore. I’ll send you somewhere else,” he said.
I just smiled and told him I wouldn’t. There we were again sweeping our problems and the past underneath the oriental rugs and pretending like nothing had ever happened. I missed him and being back with him felt right in some strange way. A large part of me was screaming, “What the heck are you doing?” I just laid there and smiled up at him.
The next day, I got a huge bouquet of flowers and I assumed they were from Sly. When I opened the card it said, Congratulations, and they were from my doctor's office. I called him immediately to tell him it was a huge mistake and that he caused huge problems by calling the magazines. The paparazzi were not our friends and they were already shattering intrusion on my life, making me more protective than ever. He claimed he knew nothing of the phone call to Star and said he would reprimand his entire office. He offered me free treatments to come back, but I told him I just couldn’t trust them anymore. In a way, I was happy it happened because I saw a side of Sly that I didn’t know was there, and it brought us together again. I wasn’t sure at all what would happen in the coming weeks, but for now I was still wearing the smile he had given me the day before.
The Trial
One of my more extreme memories of my adventures with Sly was the night he chased a paparazzi into three different cities, supposedly crashing into him three or four times. The only hitch here is that he was with someone else in the car. Her name was Estella Warren, his new co-star in his new (aptly titled) movie “Driven.” As he left " Bar One " with her, a paparazzo named E. L. Woody had hurled insults at him, one of which was asking where I was. This obviously enraged Sly and he took off after him, side swiping him several times. He chased him through West Hollywood, Hollywood, and Beverly Hills. The police were squabbling over which city had jurisdiction over the matter.
E. L. Woody was quick to report the incident to the police and Sly was about to be arrested on charges of attempted vehicular manslaughter. This was the same paparazzo that had dogged Sly and I for years, selling pictures and stories to the tabloids. Sly was his cash cow, so to speak, and he knew exactly how to get a rise out of him.
I got a frantic call from Sly the next day explaining what happened. He wanted me to cooperate with his attorneys and stand up in court to the paparazzo, E. L. Woody. His attorneys would try to use reasons of stalking and harassment to get the charge thrown out. The only burning question on my mind was what he was doing at two in the morning with his new co-star at a bar that we had once frequented together. I felt the sting of betrayal and tears welt up in my eyes at the thought that he didn’t seem to care how his cheating hurt me. I finally asked what was going on between them.
“Nothing, Baby love—we just went out for a drink with the cast after shooting. It was innocent, I swear,” he pleaded.
The next day, I got a call from the Beverly Hills police department asking me to come down and give my deposition. I was met by two detectives who ushered me into a small room with a video camera and bright lights. I felt like I was auditioning for an old cop movie, being heavily interrogated. They asked me how I knew Sly, how long I had known him, the nature of our relationship, etc.
I explained for the next two hours about the night we were leaving a club and E.L Woody called out to Sly “Hey Rambo, why don’t you take out your elevator lifts and come over here?” E. L. Woody then proceed to hit himself in the face with his own camera and fell to the ground trying to make it seem as if Sly had hit him. This was just one example of the constant harassment we endured with this criminal paparazzo. After hours of interrogation, the detectives finally let me go. My testimony kept Sly from being arrested. But that was just the beginning, as now the court trial was to begin.
Sly called me at my parents’ home on Easter insisting that I come to the Beach House immediately for a meeting with the attorneys.
“Wow, attorneys work on Easter?” I exclaimed. I told him I couldn’t leave, as my stepmom had just put dinner on the table. I hung up and went to the table. Sly promptly called back. My stepmother yelled into the phone that I was having dinner with family and that was that! He waited an hour and called back again, pleading with me to come now.
I then was on my way to Malibu from Corona. When I arrived, there was a room full of suits including Robert Shapiro, the trial lawyer most famous for defending OJ Simpson. Sitting on the couch was Estella, his co-star, burning daggers through me with her eyes. Sly grabbed me and took me into the bedroom. He started kissing me passionately before I could even speak. He sat me on the bathroom sink and pulled my panties off while thrusting into me with the urgency of a bull. He then proceeded to throw me on the bed and make love to me for the next 15 minutes or so. He gave me ample time to clean up and then rejoin the group.
Kevin was making BBQ and drinks for all the guests. Sly was careful about keeping me away from Estella. My women’s intuition was telling me they were lovers and he was
feeding her the same lines as me. For the next few hours, I sat and talked with the lawyers on what to say and what not to say under oath at the hearing—a sort of impromptu PR session. I couldn’t help noticing Sly and Estella slipping off into the next room for what seemed forever. She came back into the living room with him, her hair messed up and make-up smeared. I am not sure why Sly felt it necessary to torture me this way, especially since I had come to help him in this very important matter.
I received a subpoena the next day to appear in Court. Robert Shapiro’s office called and requested me to show up at his office for one last meeting. This whole mess had begun weighing on me and became quite a burden. Entering the courtroom alone, I was beyond terrified. The judge called my name and I approached the stand.
“Do you swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”
“Yes,” I answered. One of Sly’s attorneys started the questioning. I told the jury the story of the paparazzo and how he hounded Sly and I wherever we went, harassing and ridiculing Sly to evoke some sort of angry reaction.
Once Upon a Star - Celebrity kiss and tell stories Page 5