Memo to James “Whitey” Bulger: If you keep your prison-cell light on at 3 in the morning, a guard will look in on you.
The Boston Globe recently broke news that the famous Beantown mobster was caught masturbating under a bright light in his Sumterville, Fla., prison cell. His punishment: a 30-day stint in solitary.
The notorious Bulger, indicted for 19 murders, insists he was not engaging in a one-man sex act. The lifelong criminal told authorities that he was actually applying medication to his genitals. “I’ve never had any charges like that in my whole life,” the Globe reports Bulger saying with a huff. “I’m 85 years old. My sex life is over.”
If it’s any consolation, at least it didn’t get him run out of showbiz. That was the fate endured by Pee-wee Herman when he was caught masturbating in an adult-movie theater.
You can argue that Pee-wee, who’ll soon be appearing in a new movie, “Pee-wee’s Big Holiday”, was simply doing what you’re supposed to do while watching a porn film. Others in the public eye have fewer excuses.
When NBA star Kobe Bryant was accused of rape by a female hotel employee, it killed a raft of endorsement deals even though he wound up being acquitted.
Hugh Grant managed to suppress his smug grin when posing for a mug shot in 2007 after being arrested for lewd conduct with prostitute Divine Brown in a car on the Sunset Strip.
Had John Travolta satisfied himself the Bulger way, he might have avoided embarrassing accusations of coming on to masseurs.
Similarly, Tiger Woods could have kept from getting clubbed out of his marriage — and a sweet setup with Nike — if he had not been feeling especially randy. At least he managed to keep it private, unlike Hulk Hogan, Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian and Pamela Anderson, all of whom had their most private of private moments captured on video and leaked to the public.
Charlie Sheen may top them all — with so many sex scandals under his belt that they began to seem unscandalous — but we still have a soft spot for Quentin Tarantino and his obsession with toes.
If the superstar director’s movies do not already make it clear that he has a foot fetish, all doubt was removed when Gawker published a letter from a Tarantino conquest about his request to let him suck her toes. She allowed it — then emailed a blow-by-blow to 15 of her friends. Of course the email went viral. Interestingly, Tarantino seemed to get way more worked up over the leaking of his “Hateful Eight” script than the woman’s toe-jamming missive.
Maybe there’s a lesson for Boston’s former kingpin of crime: Perspective, Whitey. Perspective!