#93: Liza Minnelli And David Gest Marry, Divorce

It’s not like Liza Minnelli had a great reputation before she walked down the aisle with dough-faced David Gest in March 2002. The Oscar-winning daughter of legend (and legendary mess) Judy Garland spent much of the eighties staring at the walls of rehab facilities, to no avail. Liza’s other addiction—husbands—reached a new low when she married David, a concert promoter turned Minnelli manager, best known for his f*cked-up face (courtesy of Michael Jackson’s plastic surgeon) and the rumors swirling around his sexual orientation.

Their wedding was a D-list celebrity clusterf*ck, with Jackson and Elizabeth Taylor serving as the wedding party and the bride allegedly zonked out on pills. During the vows, Gest declared, “You are everything to me and I will love you forever,” before grabbing and kissing her like “a drowning man eating a watermelon” (one guest’s description). The newlyweds dived into a VH1 reality show, but production was halted after just one episode due to Gest being a crazy asshole, canceling shoots and restricting access to Liza. Their 2003 divorce was fuglier than their botched plastic surgeries. David sued his lady love for $10 million, alleging she’d beaten him so badly while drunk that he was hospitalized with nerve damage–and that she’d knowingly given him herpes. What a wedding present! Liza countersued, claiming David was an obsessive cleaner who tried to poison her and stole over $2 million of her cash. The divorce wasn’t settled until 2007.

Gest followed their marital flop with a slew of appearances on UK reality shows, while Minnelli has had a bit more success in the States with appearances on Law & Order and Arrested Development.

Matt Damon and Minnie Driver fell in love while the rest of the world was going gaga over their surprise 1997 hit, Good Will Hunting. But while Matt’s character chases after Minnie at the end of that mushy flick, their actual affair ended awkwardly and abruptly when he denied having a girlfriend during an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

After her man confessed in front of millions that their relationship was amicably over (and had been for a couple of weeks), Minnie milked her newfound rep as the woman scorned, referencing Damon’s dumping in interviews and telling the Times, “It’s unfortunate that Matt went on Oprah. It seemed like a good forum for him to announce to the world that we were no longer together, which I found fantastically inappropriate.”

Even less appropriate was Matt jumping in bed with Winona “Sticky Fingers” Ryder just weeks later. Will Hunting may have been good, but the guy who played him was a straight-up bad boy.

Angelina Jolie, eh? She has tattoos. And sex. With a lot of different people. Billy Bob Thornton. Some other dudes. Possibly her brother. The list goes on and on and on. So when Jolie was cast opposite Brad Pitt in Mr. and Mrs. Smith, bedsprings were expected to be sprung.

Brad had never been so vulnerable. His marriage to Jennifer Aniston was crumbling. The aging himbo wanted kids; the nipply Friend did not. Pitt, an architecture nut, also had become obsessive about building the couple’s new house. It was enough to make a girl listen to some John Mayer records.

With trouble at home, and Jolie’s penchant for shtupping anything with a pulse, it was inevitable there would be some in-trailer hosing going on, on the set of Mr. and Mrs. Smith. In 2005, the Pitt-Aniston five-year union ended in divorce.

Brad and Angelina are now embarked on their plan to adopt the entire world one child at a time. Jennifer has been working out her single’s issues with a succession of men including unfunny party-harder Vince Vaughn and that Mayer guy. Magazines fret nonstop over her inability to move on. But that’s okay. We haven’t either. [Charles Bottomley]