Martha to losers: “How do you like those apples?”
Martha Stewart says in a new interview that her nickname in prison was M. Diddy, that house arrest is “hideous” and that her prosecution was about bringing her down “to scare other people.”
“Of course that is what it’s all about,” she tells Vanity Fair. “Bring ‘em down a notch, to scare other people. If Martha can be sent to jail, think hard before you sell that stock.”
Stewart is under house arrest for five months at her Bedford, N.Y., estate following five months in prison for lying about a stock sale.
Asked about the electronic monitoring device on her ankle (which irritates her skin), Stewart said she knows how to remove it.
“I watched them put it on. You can figure out how to get it off,” she says, adding: “It’s on the Internet. I looked it up.”
Stewart says her version of “The Apprentice” this fall will be different than Donald Trump‘s, including a new catchphrase in place of, “You’re fired.”
“We are trying to come up with other ways to say it,” she says. “For instance, if someone is from Idaho, I could say, ‘You’re back in Boise for apple-picking time.’ “
Waving the pink flag
Pink proposed to her boyfriend of nearly four years, motocross racer Carey Hart, during a race in Mammoth Lakes, Calif., on Sunday.
The multiplatinum singer, whose real name is Alecia Moore, wrote “Will you marry me?” on a pit board, which Hart saw while he was racing. A lap later, she added: “I’m serious!”
Hart pulled off the track, dropped out of the race and scooped her up.
The couple met at the 2001 X Games in Las Vegas. Hart will appear on the fifth season of the VH1 reality show “The Surreal Life,” which premieres Sunday.
Why, she’s a plain U2 spy
A former stylist for Irish rock band U2 must return to lead singer Bono a range of clothes, including a cowboy hat and earrings, and nearly 200 backstage photographs, a Dublin Circuit Court judge ruled Tuesday.
The judge said he didn’t accept Lola Cashman‘s claim that Bono gave her the clothes as gifts at the end of the U.S. leg of the band’s 1987 tour.
Bono, The Edge, Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton filed a lawsuit against Cashman after she tried to sell the clothes and photos at a London auction house in 2002. She further angered them with her book, “Inside the Zoo With U2: My Life With the World’s Biggest Rock Band.”
Michael’s a Bahrain teaser
Michael Jackson disappointed fans by lying low during his vacation in the tiny Gulf kingdom of Bahrain following his acquittal on child molestation charges.
Sheik Abdulla bin Hamad Al Khalifa, a son of Bahrain’s king and a friend of Jackson’s brother Jermaine, said everything was being done to protect the singer’s privacy.
“What could be better than seeing Michael Jackson in real life? He’s a living legend,” said 17-year-old Mohammed Ebrahim, adding that he moonwalks every day.
Ross still rocking the boat
Billionaire businessman and part-time Bermuda resident H. Ross Perot was fined $300 in an island court for speeding and rocking other people’s boats.
Perot, 75, who ran for U.S. president as an independent in 1992, pleaded guilty to operating his 38-foot power craft Rough Rider “without reasonable consideration.”
The birthday bunch
Talk-show host Merv Griffin is 80. Actress-singer Della Reese is 74. Actor Ned Beatty is 68. Actor Burt Ward (“Batman”) is 59. Actor Fred Dryer is 59. Actor Sylvester Stallone is 59. Actor Geoffrey Rush is 54. Rapper 50 Cent is 29. Actresses Tia and Tamera Mowry (“Sister, Sister”) are 27. Actor Jeremy Suarez (“Bernie Mac”) is 15.