Guess we’ll see if the old hippie can weather it, man
George Carlin is entering a drug rehabilitation facility to shake his dependence on wine and a painkiller. “I’m going into rehab because I use too much wine and Vicodin,” the 67-year-old Carlin said in a statement released Monday by his publicist.
“No one told me I needed this,” he added. “I recognized the problem and took the step myself.”
The stand-up comedian (who started out as the Hippie-Dippie Weatherman) and author of the best-selling book “When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?” said he’s never been to rehab before.
“I know it isn’t easy, but I’m highly motivated and will do whatever’s needed,” Carlin said.
“My levels of use are nowhere near the worst you hear about these days. I could easily have continued functioning at a good level for a while, but my use would have progressed. I would have been in deeper trouble, and I didn’t want to tolerate that.”
He really almost was a lost boy
“Lost Boys” star Corey Haim says he stunned doctors with the gargantuan quantity of drugs he was consuming during his career heyday in the late 1980s, including “about 85” Valium tablets a day.
“One led to two, two led to four, four led to eight, until at the end it was about 85 a day – the doctors could not believe I was taking that much,” says Haim, 32. “And that was just the Valium – I’m not talking about the other pills I went through.”
Haim said he attempted rehab 15 times before he suffered a stroke, forcing him to clean up.
Binge, purge, nip, tuck
Sharon Osborne says she continues to battle bulimia, despite dropping from 225 pounds to 130 after having her stomach stapled.
“It just means I can’t eat as much. I still binge,” she says. “I cram it in – eat, eat, eat – until I physically can’t get any more into my body. The food is piled up to my throat. Then I have to go and be sick.”
Osborne, 52, also admits to $250,000 worth of plastic surgery: “Face lift, neck, breasts. Lips, leg lifts, bum implant, tummy tuck. I’ve had it all and it is fab-ul-ous.”
Recycle? That metal’s too heavy
Speaking of the Osbornes, stolen gold and silver discs received by Ozzy Osbourne‘s old band Black Sabbath were recovered after thieves dumped them behind trash cans.
The discs were reported missing last week after a burglary at the home of Osbourne’s former manager in southeast England. An anonymous tip led police to the eight discs, found in a plastic bag dumped behind recycling bins.
Tara’s still living in the fast lane
Party girl Tara Reid‘s campaign to clean up her image might be taking a step or two backward thanks to a new interview in Stuff magazine.
“Recently, I was driving my Porsche convertible on this empty freeway, and this cop pulls next to me,” the “American Pie” star said. “I think, ‘… I’m gonna get a ticket.’ And he asks, ‘How fast can you burn?’ And I say, ‘Maybe 100.’ I wasn’t sure how to answer, you know?
“Then he says, ‘Do you want to go faster?’ and he just let me go to the end of the freeway as fast as I wanted. I went 130.”
The birthday bunch
Actress Maggie Smith (“Harry Potter” films) is 70. Saxophonist Charles Neville (the Neville Brothers) is 66. Singer-keyboardist Edgar Winter is 58. Actor Denzel Washington is 50. Country singer Joe Diffie is 46.