Judge Chucks Out Gest/Minnelli Scalp Abuse Lawsuit

As far as celebrity marriages go, none have ever really been as weird as the one between Liza Minnelli and David Gest. Not because they looked and acted so weirdly, but because they has Martine McCutcheon as a bridesmaid.

Inevitably, the marriage between David Gest and Liza Minnelli didn't last very long, but now it's all being dragged up again - David Gest launched a legal action against Liza Minnelli, claiming that Minnelli got pissed up, threw a lamp at Gest's head and went into a manic punching frenzy that left David Gest with, among other things, a tender scalp. Unfortunately though, the judge in charge of the case has thrown it out, meaning we'll never get to know exactly how tender David Gest's scalp was.

The marriage between David Gest and Liza Minnelli never looked like it'd a bag of laughs to be part of; for a start, both of them looked as if their plastic surgeon was the girl who made the Lionel Richie clay head in the Hello video, and also there was just something unrelentingly creepy about Liza Minnelli and David Gest - we can't have been the only ones who wanted to scrub ourselves down with wire wool after seeing them together or hearing them speak. And, if David Gest is to be believed, there was something strange about his marriage to Liza Minnelli - she kept beating the shit out of him.

Last week, David Gest launched a $10 million legal action against Liza Minnelli where he claimed that he and Liza once had a row in a London hotel that culminated in Liza Minnelli throwing a lamp at him before attacking him with fists. This attack, David Gest claims, left him with:

"throbbing pain, severe headaches, vertigo, nausea, hypertension, scalp tenderness and insomnia."

In return, Liza Minnelli's medical experts say that all this scalp tenderness is down to shingles, not the boozed-up daughter of Judy Garland thumping him about with her hands and various electrical fittings. Now, however, the judge in charge all this mess has decided to throw the whole case out, claiming:

"The complaint must be dismissed in its entirety. There is no triable issue of fact." 

This might not be the last we hear of David Gest's tender scalp, though, because he plans to appeal, while Liza Minnelli is counter-suing, claiming that she lost work because Gest alienated a lot of people in showbusiness, although starring in 1987 movie Rent-A-Cop probably did just as much damage in hindsight. But at least Liza Minnelli has started selling her shoes on eBay, which makes for two less things to allegedly beat David Gest about the head with.

Read more:

Judge Halts Minnelli Abuse Claim - BBC

[story by Stuart Heritage]