The Big Surprise Is That Sonny’s Kind Of Normal

Dad’s in Congress, Mom’s in catalogs and Chastity Bono has finally come out of the closet.

Sonny and Cher’s daughter, long rumored to be a lesbian, fesses up in the new issue of the gay magazine Advocate.

“I lived in total fear with my shades drawn,” said Bono, 25, who feared the truth would damage her career as a singer-songwriter. “I was being followed and hounded. No, I really didn’t have any guilt about lying.”

Bono said her parents have been supportive, but she also admits that she preferred hanging out with her father because he made meals for her and ate with her.

“It’s hard to be raised by nannies and in chaos, and that’s what my mom’s house is like,” she said. “So it was nice when I was growing up to have a place that was kind of normal.”

Congressional critic Newt Gingrich, on the Oscars: “I can’t tell you how glad I am that ‘Forrest Gump’ won … I’ve refused to go see ‘Pulp Fiction’ on the grounds that there’s a certain level of degeneration that shouldn’t be honored with your cash.”

He and his friends are still a bunch of animals

Eric Burdon turns 54 today.

He might as well have stood there like a statue

David Letterman, less than a smash hit in his stint as Academy Awards host last week, owned up to it on his “Late Show” Monday night. Number One on the list of Top 10 Complaints About This Year’s Academy Awards was none other than “Letterman.” Deadpanned Dave: “I had no idea the thing was televised. Boy, is my face red now.”

It’s a nice change from those Hollywood hoops

Two-time Oscar winner Jessica Lange, this year’s best actress for her role in “Blue Sky,” says she’s moving back to her home town in the hinterlands of northeastern Minnesota. “Most of my family lives back there, and my extended family,” she said. “I have a cabin in the woods near Cloquet that I love.”

Maybe his foot, if he can get it out of his mouth

Speaking of Letterman, a San Francisco conceptual artist named Pop Zhao in his next project plans to ask 17,520 people: “Which body part of David Letterman do you like?”

Looks like she’s destined to be a lonely lady

And speaking of talentless artists with the initials P.Z., 40-year-old Pia Zadora is now officially divorced from 70-year-old Meshulam Riklis, a former Las Vegas hotel owner.

Even Newt’s above Bobbitt in the pecking order

Yes, we’re still shoving Brian “Kato” Kaelin down your throats, and we’re not the least bit ashamed of it. As New York Post celebrity watcher Richard Johnson notes: “I think Kato is more deserving of fame than Joey Buttafuoco and John Wayne Bobbitt. There’s a category of subhumanoids that are famous below Kato Kaelin.”

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Compiled by staff writer Rick Bonino