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| Mario |
Actor/model Mario Maurer called his old manager, Nirun ''Coco'' Limsomwong, offering an apology to end their multi-million baht legal dispute.
Superstar Mario suggested a one-on-one meeting to settle their contract and damages row, which has dragged on for months.
Mario contacted Coco last month asking if he could prostrate himself at his feet, in a formal show of ''sorry'' for their falling out.
Coco, who discovered the young star, started the legal action after Mario left him for rival manager, Supachai ''A'' Sriwichit.
Coco says Mario left him in breach of their contract, and accuses A of stealing his star property away.
As for the meeting, Coco was willing to turn up, but his mother told him not to go.
Mario contacted Coco two weeks before Mother’s Day, sounding teary. He asked if they could see each other privately, so he could beg forgiveness at his feet.
The catch? Coco, said Mario between snuffles, would have to come alone.
Coco was presented with a challenge. Was Mario’s offer mere legal chicanery, or a genuine attempt to settle the dispute?
''I felt sorry for Mario, and almost said yes. He wanted to prostrate himself at my feet, and I told him it wasn’t necessary. But he insisted, saying a monk had advised him to make the apology.
''At the time, I had just been through an operation on my eye, and needed time to recover. I told Mario, and he asked me to call again when I was ready.
''We have not spoken since. I consulted many people, including my mother, who said I would be foolish to meet him amid our legal dispute, and even sillier to go alone.
''I trust Mario, but not the people who surround him,'' says Coco, who believes Mario now is trying to prolong their dispute needlessly.
This week Mario failed to turn up at a preliminary hearing called by the Southern Criminal Court. He sent his lawyer instead.
The two sides failed to make progress. The court has now another meeting, to examine Coco’s witnesses, on Sept 18.
Coco is seeking 600,000 baht from Mario for breach of contract, after Mario left to join the camp of rival manager A.
In another suit, Coco is suing A for 6 million baht in damages, for luring Mario away to join his own stable.
Mario and his manager are suing Coco back, for a total of 44m baht, for damaging their reputation, as he aired details of their dispute in the media.
Mario maintains he still respects Coco, who discovered Mario and turned him into a star. But Coco is not sure if Mario genuinely wants to bring their dispute to an end.
Lawyers for both sides, he said, had attempted to reach a settlement outside court, without success.
''If he turned up at court, we could end it quickly. Both sides have to give ground, and the court still is confident that we can settle without it going before the judges.
''For me, the money is just part of it. The real problem is that Mario refuses to apologise.''
Asked to comment on Coco’s claims that he offered to prostrate himself at a private meeting, Mario said he has been advised to stay mum.
''It could affect the outcome of the case,'' he says. -
2.
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| Mor Oiy |
Mor Oiy, who posed almost naked in the July edition of Penthouse magazine’s Thai edition, is in a moral dilemma about taking off her clothes for the pleasure of others, and wants to redeem herself.
However, she is not prepared to give up modelling, as it is her chosen profession. The gods, she says, will just have to find some other way to forgive her.
''In my next life, I want to go to heaven, so I am making merit now,'' she told Koosang Koosom magazine.
She had asked her spiritual adviser, Ajan Noo Kanpai, whether modelling nearly naked was a sin.
Ajan Noo, who has carved tattoos on Angelina Jolie’s body, said he had seen her Penthouse spread and thought it was okay.
''He told me it was just art, and if other people were upset then that was up to them. They are the ones thinking below the navel.
''However, he did add that being a model was a sin, as it encourages people to worship the body.''
Mor Oiy says she makes a living from modelling, so can hardly be expected to give it up.
Other spiritual figures have offered troubling advice on her vocation.
Mor Oiy, according to a nun she consulted, gossiped about people in a past life.
''Now I am paying for my sins. In this life, I pose in revealing spreads, so I am the subject of gossip for the entire nation,'' she laments.
At webboards, Thais are unimpressed. ''It’s amazing how people can cite religion as an excuse for what they want to carry on doing anyway,'' posters said.
''She can always say no.'' -
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| Pae |
Pae, who is about to start work on a joint Thai-Laos production, Sabaidee Luang Prabang II, in Laos, said he had paid one visit already and nothing had happened.
''We went right into a market, and there was no fuss,'' he said, commenting on news reports that anti-Pae fever had disrupted shooting, which was due to start this month.
''As a result of Pae’s comments, the film crew had to come home early, at a cost of 1 million baht, after authorities withdrew permission for them to shoot,'' claimed the Ban Muang newspaper.
The fuss started last month when Pae was asked whether his girlfriend, Ratchawin ''Koy'' Wongwiriya, would get jealous while he was away.
''She has no reason to worry. I have met Laos girls. Thai girls are much prettier,'' he said, sparking an angry response on the net, with some Lao teens threatening to do him harm if he ever set foot in their country.
But Pae, guitarist in the rock band Slur who is also carving out a career as a leading man in Thai movies, is unflustered.
Back in Bangkok after a recent visit to Laos to prepare for the film, he said shooting had been delayed by heavy rains, but other than that there had been no problem.
The remark, says Pae, was just a throwaway line.
''I still have my fans, young women and men alike,'' insists the star of The Body, The Last Moment, and Slice.
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