John Travolta said yesterday that he tried desperately to save the life of his son as he testified in the trial of two people accused of trying to blackmail him. With his wife, Kelly Preston, looking on inside the courtroom, Travolta said he performed CPR on his son after a nanny alerted him the teen had fallen ill at a family vacation home in the Bahamas. Jett Travolta later died from a seizure. Travolta is the star witness at the trial of paramedic Tarino Lightbourne and former Bahamian senator Pleasant Bridgewater, who are accused of trying to extort $25 million from the movie star. Travolta also said - apparently for the first time in public - that 16-year-old Jett was autistic, confirming speculation that had swirled for years. (AP)
Former child star Mackenzie Phillips said yesterday that her father, John Phillips, who was a leader of the pop group the Mamas and the Papas, raped her when she was a teenager and that her sexual relationship with him later became “consensual.’’ Mackenzie Phillips writes in her new book, “High on Arrival,’’ that she had sex with her father on the night before she was to get married in 1979 at age 19, according to People magazine. John Phillips died in 2001. (AP)
More charges were filed yesterday against the lawyer-boyfriend of Anna Nicole Smith, with prosecutors claiming he helped obtain the drugs that killed the former Playboy model. Howard K. Stern was charged with five more felony counts in an amended complaint filed by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office, bringing the total number of charges against him to 11. Smith died of a drug overdose on Feb. 8, 2007, in a Florida hotel room. (AP)
