Taking off the Kid gloves
A bloated, bleary Britney Spears didn’t sound the only sour notes at this year’s MTV Video Music Awards.
Kid Rock was cited for misdemeanor battery after a tussle with Tommy Lee in the audience at Sunday night’s show.
Both are ex-husbands of Pamela Anderson, who was a presenter at the show.
An eyewitness, rap producer Rich Nice, said although Rock threw the only blows that landed – a backhand slap and a punch – Lee was the instigator.
“It looked like Tommy Lee initiated it because Kid Rock was ignoring him,” said Nice, who was two tables away. “And Tommy Lee kind of antagonized him.”
And Kanye West, who failed to win in any of the five categories where he was nominated, threw a tantrum after the ceremony.
“That’s two years in a row, man … give a black man a chance,” fumed West.
Last year, he crashed the stage at the MTV Europe Awards after not winning best video.
Both West and rival rapper 50 Cent have CDs coming out today, with Fitty vowing to stop making solo records if Kanye outsells him.
And Happy, Sleepy, Sneezy …
Country star Sara Evans‘ husband is asking in a court filing whether she was romantically involved with nearly a dozen people.
The list includes singers Kenny Chesney and Richard Marx, “Dancing With The Stars” partner Tony Dovolani, anyone in her band and four members of the rock group 3 Doors Down.
Hot and bothered
Paris Hilton is suing over the use of her picture and catchphrase “That’s hot” on a new Hallmark greeting card.
The card, titled “Paris’s First Day as a Waitress,” shows a photo of Hilton’s face on a cartoon of a waitress serving a plate of food.
“Don’t touch that, it’s hot,” she says to a customer who replies, “What’s hot?” She answers, “That’s hot.”
Hilton owns the registered trademark to the phrase. Hallmark defends the card as parody, which is normally protected under fair-use law.
Not that hot?
Oscar-winning director Ang Lee (“Brokeback Mountain”) says he’s not planning to cut explicit sex scenes from his new film, “Lust, Caution,” to get an R rating instead of NC-17.
Lee says the scenes in the movie – winner of the top prize Saturday at the Venice Film Festival – are necessary to show the power of the attraction between the main characters, a Japanese government official in occupied 1940s-era Hong Kong and a student protester.
“I’ve had no one say to me, ‘They are some hot scenes,’ ” says Lee. “No, the reaction has been emotional and intense.”
Keeping a clear head
Finally, we have a title for the long-awaited fourth installment in the “Indiana Jones” movie series: “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.”
Harrison Ford returns as the globe-trotting archaeologist in the film, due May 22, 2008.
The birthday bunch
Director Brian De Palma is 67. Guitarist Leo Kottke is 62. Actress Virginia Madsen is 46. Actress Kristy McNichol is 45. Musician Moby is 42. Singer Harry Connick Jr. is 40. Rapper Ludacris is 30.