Sex, Lies and a Little Black Book?
March 1, 2007 -- A former Hollywood madam's memoir drops a bomb on Tinseltown as the tell-all book of alleged "tricks" hits stores this week.
Actors Ben Affleck and Bruce Willis and baseball legend Tommy Lasorda are among about two dozen celebrities, CEOs, producers and politicians named as high-paying clients in Jody "Babydol" Gibson's book, "Secrets of a Hollywood Super Madam." (Corona Books)
"It's a complete fabrication. Nothing is true, and we are considering all legal options," said Ken Sunshine, Affleck's publicist, to ABC News.
Marty Singer, Willis' attorney, told the Los Angeles Times that the actor did not know the former madam, who was convicted in 2000.
"He's never spoken to her. The story is a complete fabrication," Singer said.
Lasorda, the fiery former manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, issued a statement through his attorney, Tony Capozzola: "I have never heard of this woman and don't know why she would accuse me of something like this. But if she prints lies, I intend to sue."
But Steve Jones, a former guitarist for the punk-rock group the Sex Pistols, says Gibson could be telling the truth about him.
"It's possible I crossed paths with her back then," Jones told the Los Angeles Times.
Authorities never prosecuted any of the clients of California Dreamin, Gibson's escort service, and there is no independent evidence that the men she names paid her for providing prostitutes. Still, she says, she is undaunted by threats of lawsuits. Gibson says she went through 129 boxes of trial documents researching her story.
Gibson says she started California Dreamin to support her blond ambition. She wanted to be a music star, she needed cash and she says she became "very entrepreneurial."
"This book is about servicing the rich and famous," Gibson writes in her book.
The escort service reportedly charged clients as much as $3,000 a day for companionship and sexual favors. Gibson, who went by the name "Sasha" when running the illegal enterprise, says at one point 300 women worked for her in 16 states and Europe.
"I was leading a double life as Babydol, the recording artist," but was running an empire, "this money machine that gave me amazing creative control over my recording career," Gibson said in an interview with ABC News.
In 1999, Gibson was arrested in California, and the empire crumbled. During the trial, her defense attorneys threatened to produce a "book of tricks," containing the names of high-profile clients.
Prosecutors presented phone books and cash logs during the trial, but the names of hundreds of clients were blacked out of any public court documents.
In April 2000, Gibson, then 41, was convicted on nine counts, including money laundering, pimping and pandering. She was sentenced to nine years at a maximum security prison in central California.
Released in 2002 and off parole by 2005, Gibson says only then was she free to tell her story to the public. She also discovered that the court documents had been unsealed.
"The book is based on courtroom data. It is irrefutable. Each chapter includes the name and the entry in the black book that was used to convict me and send me to prison," Gibson said.
But why tell anything at all? Why not let sleeping dogs lie?
Heidi Fleiss, Hollywood's other famous convicted madam, declined to name names and now says there never was a black book in her case.
However, during Fleiss' 1995 trial on tax evasion charges, actor Charlie Sheen gave memorable testimony of having paid the escort service $50,000 for the pleasure of its company.
That's on the record.