People

By Rebecca Winters Sunday, Mar. 21, 2004
    • Normally She's Shy
    Even by her bass baritone — level standards of public decency, COURTNEY LOVE has sunk to a new low. On Late Show with David Letterman last week, the singer-actress babbled about drug charges she faces and repeatedly bared her bosoms. At a New York City club that same night, the rock widow allegedly tossed a microphone stand into the crowd, injuring a man and getting charged with assault. Love's publicist says, "She will be vindicated." The only person to profit from the display was Whitney Houston, whose entry into rehab earlier in the week was soon forgotten.

    What Janet Hath Wrought
    After the Super Bowl brouhaha petrified broadcasters, artists are backing off edgier fare

    BRITNEY SPEARS
    Oops! Fearing it could be "misinterpreted as suicide," Spears scrapped a bathtub drowning scene from her video for Everytime, a song about Justin Timberlake.

    ALANIS MORISSETTE
    Though they bleeped a similar obscenity in 1995, skittish radio stations wanted Morissette to remove a word from her single. She changed it to "nightmare."

    FOUNTAINS OF WAYNE
    MTV (!) forced the band to cut a scene with a girl mouthing the words to its song Mexican Wine because, said an MTV rep, "we never allow underage drinking."

    Tie Him Up, Tie Him Down and Shush Him
    Spain's most celebrated director is in trouble for a bit of unscripted dialogue. In Madrid last week, the nation's naughty auteur PEDRO ALMODOVAR said Spain's outgoing Popular Party tried to hatch a coup the day before its defeat in the March 14 election. The party denied the charge and threatened to sue the director for slander. Almodovar says he "just echoed a sea of rumors." Hey, can Bill Clinton sue anyone for Wag the Dog?