Kristen Wiig's SNL Breakdown, Paul Pierce's Paternity Fight, Paris Hilton's Heiress Clapback & More
Meltdowns, courtroom drama & billionaire bravado fuel another chaotic week in Hollywood.
Studio lights may dazzle – but behind the scenes, the scripts are getting messy.
This week, a comedy queen admits the pressure nearly broke her, a TV legend revisits an old snub, an NBA icon faces a paternity fight, and a self-made heiress pushes back on the “nepo baby” label.
Throw in reality villains rebranding, Oscar winners opening up, and surprise pregnancy tears – and the shine starts to crack. From breakdowns to baby-daddy drama, the headlines are doing what they do best: staying messy.
Hollywood 411 by KEEPING TABS has it all… let’s roll.
KRISTEN'S DESPERATE SNL WIG-OUT
COMEDIAN KRISTEN WIIG confesses that trying to be funny drove her to a breakdown during her brilliant stint on Saturday Night Live.
The now 52-year-old actress starred on TV’s iconic comedy show from 2005 to 2012 and says the pressure to make laughs with goofy characters drained her funnybone. Kristen recalls her original tryouts for the show nearly did her in, saying: “I auditioned twice and l remember when they had me come back for the second one, I was, like, I did everything ... | literally did every character that I have.”
Then after three years of performing, she had a breakdown, noting: “l’ve done every voice. I have nothing [left].” She got over the hump with “the help of other people being, like, ‘Can you play blah blah blah?’ And you’re like, ‘Well, we’ll see.’ And then you end up trying or doing it.” In her next to last season on SNL, Kristen scored huge with the movie Bridesmaids and went on to star in flicks like 2016’s Ghostbusters and Wonder Woman 1984 in 2020. That year, she wed comic-actor AVI ROTHMAN, dad of her 6-year-old twins via surrogate.
TED LANGE'S LOVE BOAT SNUB
TED LANGE played bartender Isaac Washington on the TV hit Love Boat from 1977 to 1986 and that’s the way he was treated by one of the hotshot guest stars who appeared on the romantic series. The snub still stings because more than four decades later, Ted, 78, can’t forget it. He recalls GAVIN MACLEOD, who played the ship’s captain, telling regular castmembers, “Go up to the guest star, shake their hands, and welcome them.”
So Ted approached one and “I said, ‘Hey, my name is Ted Lange, welcome to the show.’ And he went like this [making a face while yanking away his hand] and walked away.” Now Lange thinks the jerk probably thought he was an extra because of his bartender uniform. Still, he notes: “Who does that to anybody?”
BABY MAMA DRAGGING NBA LEGEND TO COURT
Former NBA all-star PAUL PIERCE has been clobbered with a paternity suit at age 48.
Preggers beauty PRINCESS SANTIAGO, an events director in L.A., is demanding the former Nets and Celtics shooter take a DNA test to see if he’s the baby daddy of the bundle she’s toting.
The mom-to-be insists she’s not about “drama or attention,” but is just “doing what’s right for my child.” She says she filed the suit only “after multiple attempts to resolve this privately. Paul Pierce is the father of my son ... and I am simply asking for a paternity test.” The aging jock, who has three kids with ex-wife JULIE LANDRUM, hasn’t yet commented on the suit. But Princess has already picked a name for her son - no surprise - it’s King!
PARIS SAYS SHE'S A SELF-MADE HEIRESS
It would be a good guess that PARIS HILTON got a big boost in her career as a model, actress and fashionista because she’s a nepo baby - the great-granddaughter of hotel-chain fatcat CONRAD HILTON - but don’t tell her that.
The 45-year-old mom of two, who early on got a publicity boost from the 2004 homemade porn flick 1 Night in Paris, insists she earned her billion-dollar fashion, beauty and showbiz empire on her own hustle. She claims her moneybags grandpa BARON HILTON left 97 percent of his fortune to charity when he died in 2019, and while her parents, RICK and KATHY HILTON, are celebs, “I haven’t gotten anything since I was 18. I’ve been working since I was 16. I did everything on my own,” insists the socialite from birth.
REALITY COMEBACKS... AND MORE
MTV’s bad boy DAVID “PUCK” RAINEY, who was a 25-year-old Villain booted from 1994’s The Real World: San Francisco, where seven strangers were put in a house to live and work together, has emerged over three decades later with a new image and gig on TikTok and YouTube. The 57-year-old, who once claimed he fathered four kids with lesbians, is now an at-home chef on his “farm-to-table cooking show named Puck Cooks.
Movie icon JODIE FOSTER, 63, who began her career at age 3 and earned an Oscar nomination at 14 for playing an underage hooker in 1976’s Taxi Driver opposite ROBERT DE NIRO, says her early success saved her from being abused, emotionally and sexually, like many actresses. “I was part of a different category of people that had power, and I was too dangerous to touch ...Predators use whatever they can in order to manipulate and get people to do what they want them to do ... It’s very difficult to emotionally manipulate me.”
The Beast in Me star CLAIRE DANES reveals she burst into tears when she learned she was preggers at age 44 with her third child. The actress says she’d undergone IVF treatments, but “didn’t know it was physically possible.” She and her husband, actor HUGH DANCY, 50, welcomed a little girl in 2023. They also have sons aged 13 and 7.