Stupid excuses by the rich and famous

     The rich and famous are really different. You know it by the way they look, their smell, their high wattage smiles, the parties they go to, their friends, their pets, and the way their wives, husbands, kids, parents, producers, publicists order them to think. And they do think differently and very creatively, too, especially if caught in some public scandal that their public require them to explain and apologize for. Here are the real standouts:

Case number 1: When Woody Allen famously slept with then girlfriend Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter Soon Yi Previn, the angsty director tried to explain it with this famous statement, the heart wants what it wants, a bold and sweeping excuse which effectively swept aside questions of pedophilia, incest, and child pornography. Allen actually has achieved immortality with this immortal statement. Sure it’s kind of grandiose but who cares? Allen is rich and famous, a celebrated director every actor and actress in Hollywood would sell their souls to work with. ‘Directed by Woody Allen’ sounds terribly hefty on any self-respecting actor’s resume, right? But this was before the whole ‘sleeping with my girlfriend’s teenage daughter’ saga and the creative and box office embarrassments that have since marred the once celebrated director’s unblemished film career.

Case number 2: A somewhat overlooked story in the Daily Mail UK carries this intriguing headline: Mel Gibson’s infamous anti-Semitic tirade a ‘death by cop’ suicide attempt after splitting from wife. So okay, Mel’s wife leaves him and he goes drunk and totally berserk so that when the cops finally cuffed him he insults the Jews to incite them to shoot him? Very creatively put. But this lame excuse overlooked what happened next, namely, Mel’s brutal treatment of Oksana Grigorieva, the mother of his infant child. Was that, too, part of his strategy to end his life? Incidentally, this story appeared courtesy of an unnamed friend of Mel’s, conveniently interviewed for an upcoming Oscar article in Vanity Fair. Can we hazard a guess that this ‘friend’ carries the moniker handler/publicist in his/her business card?

Case number 3: The news that Charlie Sheen was hospitalized for stomach pains was, if you get down to it, no news all. Charlie, after all, is human and is allowed to get sick once in a while. The funny thing about this non-news, however, is his publicist’s curious reaction to it. Said publicist issued a press statement that basically reads: Charlie Sheen suffers from hernia from laughing too much. Eh? The excuse would have been accepted by the public at face value if the porn stars did not come out of the woodwork and revealed what was on everyone’s mind: 36-hours of sex and drugs binge taking its toll on the talented and highly popular star of Two and a Half Men. And the dazed photos which merely emphasized the gold teeth reinforced the porn stars’ claims. No matter. It was a good excuse though, if a bit too hard to swallow.

Case number 4: You’re a politician about to reach the zenith of success – the presidential nomination – when you’re sideswiped by a tabloid allegation of fathering an illegitimate child. What do you do? Deny it, of course. And add something colorful like the picture of you holding your illegitimate child was digitally altered, manufactured or something. Then you pile up another excuse by suggesting that since politicians frequently hold babies, the baby you’re holding must have been a picture of you holding another baby at some point in your life. Or something. Famous last word by John Edwards, whose wife Elizabeth totally left him out of her will when she died of cancer last year. As for the disgraced John Edwards, he’ll probably marry the mother of this other child but of course, since he’s a politician, he’s still denying it until he’s blue in the face.

Case number 5: Wouldn’t you like to be a fly in the wall when Prince Charles flung this infamous excuse in Princess Diana’s outraged face after being caught with his pants down boinking the very much married Camilla Parker Bowles: Do you want me to be the first Prince of Wales not to have a mistress ? Come to think of it, did he really want an honest answer or was he just trying to be droll and facetious? The intellect-challenge frog prince later confounded his shame by concocting another elaborate excuse: throw the blame back at his stiff-backed dad and mom for raising a mediocre man and prince his highly accomplished late wife Princess Diana, his parents, and the rest of Britain certainly did not want. Oh well. There’s always William. How goes it when the Queen dies? The Queen is dead. Long live (thank God for small mercies) King William?

Case number 6: ‘Intern’ is a word which has become synonymous to sleazy sex since Monica Lewinsky ‘blew’ Bill Clinton at the Oval Office. But that it isn’t why the father of soon-to-be-divorced Chelsea Clinton is on this list. Remember when the former president said he once tried marijuana, didn’t like it, so he didn’t inhale? And pigs can fly, right? They’ve been sprouting wings since the marsupials lived and copulated in the desert. Score another immortal sound bite from the artful draft dodger.

Case number 7: Like Charlie Sheen, former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford certainly hires the best minds in politics. One day, in June 2009, the governor caused an alarm when he went mysteriously AWOL for a week. His staff, handler, and what-have-yous put forth a very intriguing and crafty excuse: the governor was on a lone hike in the Appalachian Mountains. Media hounds, however, have more suspicious minds than the best minds in politics give them credit for. So, they did a little digging and came out with an Argentinian connection named Maria. Turned out the governor was on a lone hike alright, on taxpayer’s expense, while enjoying the summer sun in the arms of his tanned journalist mistress. That effectively ended Sanford’s marriage, career, and political prospects for good. He’s now back in Argentina with his Maria. He’s happy or, as one observer snidely puts it, “until she wipes out his bank account”.

Case number 8: It started with a very convincing excuse: he left home early, hit a fire hydrant then a tree in his own garage and crashed. Pure and simple. It could happen to anyone. But since the “anyone” happened to be golf’s one and only Tiger Woods, everyone began to wonder and to search for explanations. Sooner than expected, the thread slowly unravelled to reveal the sometimes comical and sordid truth involving golf clubs, Elin Nordegren, and the porn-glorious Las Vegas connection that involved the kind of women normally associated with, well, Charlie Sheen. And the tiger loses its grip and licks it wounds.

Case number 9: It was a glorious excuse. The kind even the best minds in Hollywood would have a hard time duplicating: of an essentially vacuous prince excusing his flight from responsibility since, well, if he becomes king he won’t be able to fully function without the help and support of the woman he loves. Quite a lovely sentiment, which unfortunately led to a bigger scandal in 1936 when King Edward VIII abdicated the throne to marry Wallis Simpson, a twice-divorced American socialite. It would have been a glorious excuse to top all glorious excuses, except for one thing. Years later, historians would suggest that the King, who was later styled Duke of Windsor after the abdication, was deliberately led to give up the throne because of his dangerous political views. Turns out the quite daffy duke was a big Hitler fan and so was his mannish-looking but impeccably dressed wife, the Windsor duchess. There was no happy ending for the two either. True, they were together until death, but they were together enjoying a parasitic life without anything useful to do except bore each other to death, literally.