I Touched LeAnn Rimes and Eddie Cibrian - Canoodling with Extra Gravy

 

It is a rare day when my celebrity location assistant powers (or the CLAP, as I call it) miss a star in my midst, particularly two of them at the same time.  And even more particularly, two celebrities as scandal-ridden as Cracker Barrel sweetheart LeAnn Rimes and beefcake tomato Eddie Cibrian.  You may know her better as the country music vixen who also specializes in Hollywood interior decorating, or as we call it where I grew up – Home Wrecking.  Yep – ladies grab your husbands, because when this buttermilk biscuit is looking for some gravy, she don’t care if it is already on your plate or not.  Just ask Third Watch-star Eddie Cibrian’s ex wife.

The reason the CLAP wasn’t operating at full capacity during this celebrity touch moment is that I was trying to operate on three hours of sleep on a 6 am flight back home from New Orleans.  This is normally not a problem but the amount of white trash fumes I had inhaled on Bourbon Street the night before had made me practically comatose.  A text from my ever-alert travel companion Elizabeth who was seated back in coach where she belonged (there was only one upgrade available… don’t judge!), called my attention to the fact that Leann and Eddie were seated right in front of me.

I will spare you the blow-by-blow color commentary around all the canoodling that was going on one row in front of me, because the real issue was, in my delicate state, how was I going to touch them and not have them notice?  I think we can all remember that time, in a drunken stupor, I tried to gently glide past Nell Carter, tripped and ended up lodged in her cleavage for three days.

As fate would have it, Leann helped me out when she put her hand on the back of her seat (I am guessing to stretch her left breast?  Do girls do this???).  More out of the urge to pass out than anything else, I leaned forward and touched her hand with my hair.  Thus, the before-thought-impossible “Hair to Hand” celebrity touch was invented.  Eddie was much easier.  He kept leaning over to… I am guessing here… stretch her right breast???  As he did this for the hundredth time, I grazed his elbow between the seats with my pinky finger.  A rare celebrity-couple touch completed!

In the end, I think we all learned an important lesson here:  Don’t eat biscuits at Cracker Barrel or someone will surely touch your gravy.

Donatella Versace - A Major Feat

There is really only one mandatory requirement when it comes to touching celebrities, and that is you must be close enough to them to actually touch them. That seems obvious enough. The problem with this is it often requires acts of extreme bravery because once you are close enough to a celebrity to actually touch them, you are also close enough to see what they really look like. And honey child, let me tell you, that ain’t always pretty. Case in point: Donatella Versace.

I happened to find myself in Milan, Italy recently. Now, don’t get all “Under a Tuscan Sun” on me. Milan is the Pittsburgh of Italy, if Pittsburgh had better hair and aperitifs. Yes, I know it is the fashion capital of the world. But guess what? Throw a bunch of models in fancy clothes in the middle of Detroit and what do you get? A bunch of dead models.

So while in Milan, I attended an expensive event with cheap appetizers that was filled with Italian celebrities, who basically looked like your average Milanese factory workers but with slim fit tuxedos and feathered blow outs. There was only one major touch worthy celebrity in the bunch, and that was fashion designer Donatella Versace.


First of all, let’s be very clear about one thing: Donatella up close looks like the female guitar player from the Muppets, Janice. That’s of course, if the Muppets were made of old leather, rather than foam. The paparazzi (I am in Italy now, where that word actually means something) went nuts when Donatella arrived and promptly retreated to the elevated VIP section, along with a smattering of Italian soap opera stars, or as we call them in America: “prostitutes.”


This presented a big celebrity touching challenge. I wasn’t in the VIP section (strange, right?). I was down on the dance floor (naturally). How could I touch her way up there in her ivory VIP tower? I needed a miracle, and it came in the form of high fashion, as it always should.


Now I am generally opposed to open-toe shoes because everyone knows that’s how you get your toes cut off in mall escalators. But in this instance, I fully appreciated them, because Donatella was now at the rail of the VIP area overlooking the dance floor and her calloused orange toes were exposed and ripe for touching.


I know it is disgusting to touch other people’s feet unless you are in a bus station bathroom, but this was my chance. I glided across the floor to whatever horrible Kylie Minogue remix was playing, reached up as if to do the gay “This is my favorite song ever” cheer, then grazed her second toe (it stuck out further than her big toe) with my hand. And, that, is how you touch a fashion icon -- as far away from her face as humanly possible.