Jun 24, 2005 01:50 PM
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Radar Online reports that Russell Crowe's lawyer was responsible for the great advice that led Crowe's publicist to issue perhaps the most entertaining press release in the history of actor-related assault, in which Crowe's infamous bashing of a hotel clerk with a telephone was blamed on the employee's poor customer service skills:
In the days following the June 6 incident, one of the producers behind Cinderella Man arranged to have Estrada join Crowe for his June 8 Letterman appearance, says a source close to the project: “Crowe would offer his apology to Nestor, they would shake hands and make nice for a few precious TV moments, and all would be right in the world.”
But Crowe’s attorney, Gerald Lefcourt, refused to let his client take the easy way out. Instead, he advised Crowe’s publicist, Robin Baum, to deny that the phone hit Estrada—a move that engendered enough bad press to hamstring the actor’s critically lauded boxing flick. Days later, when Estrada and his lawyer, Eric Franz, again suggested the pair shake hands, “Lefcourt went crazy,” says our source. “He just about told Nestor to go screw himself. It made no sense.”
A handshake is a much bigger hassle than three weeks of public apologies and a costly lawsuit, isn't it? We can only hope that Crowe will ignore his lawyer's other suspect counsel: "The next time you can't connect a call to Australia at 4 am, make sure you kill the bastard and pay off the bellboy to dump the body in someone else's room."
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