People

By NADYA LABI

WHATEVER, LIAM

It's 1998, but Britain apparently hasn't stopped sending its delinquents Down Under. While on tour in Australia, Oasis' lead mouthpiece, LIAM GALLAGHER, allegedly head-butted and broke the nose of a fan who tried to snap his picture. The singer was released on bail, just in time to hit an all-time low in Brisbane, bickering onstage with the rest of the band and, worse, inflicting his whingeing vocals on the audience. To round off Gallagher's stellar week, Cathay Pacific Airways barred the rock group from its flights. A spokeswoman claims that Gallagher threatened to stab one of the airline's pilots while flying into Perth. Brother Noel's response to those allegations: "I don't know, that's just Liam."

FROM SQUIDGY TO SAINT

Awash in the devotion accorded PRINCESS DIANA after her death, many a commentator surmised that a secular saintliness had enveloped her. Now Harper's Bazaar editor in chief LIZ TILBERIS claims that Diana gave off New Agey emanations. In her autobiography No Time to Die, excerpted in Britain's Daily Mail, Tilberis describes Diana's healing powers, which both women referred to as a "white light." Diana used the term metaphorically, but Tilberis maintains that a call from the princess boosted her platelet count while she was undergoing chemotherapy to cure her ovarian cancer. "I believe the princess was single-handedly responsible for getting me home to my family," Tilberis writes. "And no one will ever convince me otherwise." We won't even try.

THE FAR-FROM-MERRY WIDOW

These days it's hard to imagine how anyone could cross the line about anything having to do with Bill Clinton's sex life. But right-wing pundit ARIANNA HUFFINGTON, ever the trailblazer, may have. In a January column, she reports allegations that Shelia Lawrence, best known as the widow of the ambassador ignominiously disinterred from Arlington National Cemetery, took advantage of Clinton's now infamous libido. Huffington quotes a source saying "[M. Larry Lawrence's] greatest leverage was having turned a blind eye toward Clinton's affair with his own wife." Lawrence responded by slapping her and Creators Syndicate with a $25 million libel suit. Huffington won't go down easily, telling TIME, "I stand by my column. We're going to file a suit to dismiss her lawsuit."

Q&A

Starship Troopers' CASPER VAN DIEN talks about his upcoming movie Tarzan and the Lost City.

Q: Was the loincloth a problem?

A: Well, it's really long in the front.

Q: You weren't embarrassed?

A: I'm an exhibitionist. I'm an actor! I hadn't had a 29-in. waist since I was probably, like, 12.

Q: Did anyone special appreciate your newfound physique?

A: I didn't have the time to do that.

Q: It's hard to wear less clothing in a movie than Jane March [who plays Tarzan's fiance Jane].

A: She doesn't take her clothes off at all. I was hoping we'd have one of those love scenes like in The Lover, but we didn't.

Q: That's a shame. How's your jungle call?

A: Bestial. I studied Jane Goodall and her tapes on the apes and everything so that I learned ape movement and ape sounds.

Q: Can we hear it?

A: Oh, I don't. I don't. I just, uhm... I just do an ape sound.

Q: Come on. You're not much of an exhibitionist.

A: I do [pauses for big breath] hoo-hah, hoo-hah, hoo-hah, hoo-hah. Then I go into a big loud scream, which I don't feel like because I've got my sister in the car with me. She's looking at me, like, Dude.