To Los Angeles, where a whole new era for celebrity lawsuits appears to have dawned, thanks to a woman called Valerie Turks. Turks is suing Sean "P Diddy" Combs for $1 trillion, claiming that the rapper and mogul fathered a child with her 24 years ago and stole a casino chip from her "worth over 100 zillions of dollars", which he then gave to Gwen Allen, who as far as LiS can work out was a character played by Jean Harlow in the 1931 Jimmy Cagney gangster film The Public Enemy.
Almost as an aside, the lawsuit also accuses Diddy of masterminding 9/11. In fairness, it doesn't state that the author of It's All About the Benjamins single-handedly planned the most famous terrorist attack of modern times – that would clearly be ridiculous – but appears to suggest that he did so in conjunction with his ex-girlfriend Kim Porter and Rodney King, of sparking-the-LA-riots fame. Why P Diddy, his ex-girlfriend Kim Porter and Rodney King of-sparking-the-LA-riots fame would band together in order to mastermind a terrorist attack against America is not specified. Alas, the judge refused to issue a restraining order against Combs, presumably in the belief that the chances of the rapper attempting to contact a woman who claims he masterminded 9/11 and engaged in the theft of "100 zillions of dollars" with the aid of someone who doesn't actually appear to exist in real life were slim. Combs's publicist subsequently issued a terse "no comment".
Whatever else you may make of this turn of events, LiS feels that the bar has been raised somewhat in the world of celebrity lawsuits. It's no longer enough just to make some piffling paternity claim: you'd better accuse them of involvement in a major historical event and implicate a fictional character as well. LiS waits excitedly for a lawsuit alleging 50 Cent's role in the outbreak of the second Sino-Japanese war in cahoots with Madge from Neighbours.
