UPDATE, JULY 28, 8:57 A.M.: Unlike . . . well . . . everything else, Jenna Jameson is not taking her latest legal hiccup lying down.
The former porn star of Huntington Beach is scheduled to have a lawyer representing her in Judge Patrick J. Leston's DuPage County Circuit courtroom in Wheaton, Ill., today to fight a default judgment against her that won an early nod from Hizzoner.
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This is, of course, tied to the lawsuit brought by an Illinois theater chain owner who claimed the Vivid star shined on scheduled appearances at his theaters to promote her 2008 flick Zombie Strippers in March to party at Perez Hilton's birthday bash in Hollyweird.
Today's court date had been set for Leston to announce the amount of the award granted to Ted E.C. Bulthaup III, but with a new Jameson lawyer arriving on the scene, the judge has vacated the judgment so he can hear her side.
Her mouthpiece will contend that Bulthaup's legal team tried to “extort and blackmail” Jameson, reports gossip monger Hilton, who ends his post with this sweet nothing: “Thanks again for risking all this to join our celebration, we really
are flattered. Next year, let's make your appearance a little cheaper for you!”
UPDATE, JULY 7, 12:30 P.M.: Except for one nagging detail, an Illinois movie theater mogul apparently won his lawsuit against Jenna Jameson.
Because neither Jameson nor representatives of the former porn star of Huntington Beach showed up in Judge Patrick J. Leston's DuPage County Circuit courtroom in Wheaton on Wednesday, a temporary default judgment was awarded to Ted E.C. Bulthaup III.
It will become official in about a month IF . . .
Leston wants to see proof of the amount lost when Jameson shined on scheduled appearances in March at Bulthaup's Hollywood Palms Cinema in Naperville and Hollywood Boulevard Cinema in Woodridge, Ill.
Jameson was supposed to appear promote her 2008 flick Zombie Strippers and sign copies of her book How to Make Love Like a Porn Star. However, at the last minute, her agent called Jameson in sick. Pictures then surfaced on the Internet of Jameson partying at Perez Hilton's birthday bash the night of her first scheduled Chicago-area appearance–when she was supposedly bedridden.
Bulthaup, who claimed damages of $50,000 in his original suit, tells the Naperville Sun that Jameson did not retain a lawyer to represent her. “Jenna doesn't believe she needs an attorney,” he reportedly said. “Her various 'people' were playing lawyer for her, the
last one being her web designer.”
ORIGINAL POST, JUNE 3, 1:46 P.M.: A theater owner is suing Jenna Jameson for allegedly faking an illness to get out of a series of Chicago-area personal
appearances to promote her movie Zombie Strippers!
Meanwhile, the retired porn star's off-and-on-and-off-again boyfriend/baby daddy Tito Ortiz, known around MMA circles as the “Huntington Beach Bad Boy,” has apparently done some stripping himself, at least based on a nudie sweeping the Interwebs.
Theater owner Ted Bulthaup recently filed the suit in DuPage County
Circuit Court in Wheaton, Illinois, that claims Jameson (real name Jenna Marie Massoli) reneged on an agreement
to make paid personal appearances at his theaters March 24-26. More than $50,000 in damages are being sought.
The theater owner claims hundreds of advance tickets were sold, Jameson and her entourage were paid, and thousands were spent to advertise her appearances. But he day before Jameson was supposed to touch down in the Windy City, her agent disclosed a “medical emergency” would prevent her from attending, according to the litigation.
But “on the very evening” Jameson had been scheduled to be singing books and posters at a Bulthaup theater, she was partying at “Perez's Blue Ball,” celebrity disher Perez Hilton's birthday party in LA, claims the suit. And, based on photos posted on Hilton's widely consumed website, Jameson didn't look sick. “She looked extremely happy, and was partying the
night away in her blue dress,” Bulthaup tells the Chicago Sun-Times.
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He reports that Jameson was served with court papers at her Huntington Beach home on May 24, but only
“after extensive and extended efforts at not answering the
door” to accept papers from a process server. An Aug. 15 preliminary hearing is set.
By then Jameson should be over the shock–SHOCK!–over her former main man's snapshot in the buff. It was sent through Ortiz's Twitter account on Thursday, but the fighter in training for an upcoming UFC bout later tweeted, “Someone hack my f–king phone.”
The photo and his explanation were later deleted from his account's feed, and Ortiz went on tweeting as if nothing happened. But it was too late to stop gremlins from acquiring and posting the original (carefully cropped at right).
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.