New York, New York, October 29, 2003 (API) – Lawyers for manner-maven Martha Stewart, today filed a lawsuit claiming cult entertainer Dusty Carr “willing, insidiously, and maliciously maligned Martha Stewart’s character and professional reputation.” The suit claims $2-million in damages.

The suit is based on a July 2003 interview Carr gave to ‘New York’ magazine. Carr is quoted as saying, “Without a doubt Martha Stewart is actually a man named Kenny Shapiro, a transsexual female impersonator who used to sing backup with Bette Midler when she performed at the gay baths back in the early 1970s.”

This is not the first time Stewart and Carr have clashed. In June 2002, Stewart claimed that Carr “went totally berserk” during a taping of her popular television program. “He was the invited celebrity who was going to show us how to mix cocktails. He arrived drunk and belligerent, and said his behaviour was due to an incorrect prescription for painkillers and cough syrup. He vomited in a hot oven, tore up the set, and severely beat my makeup artist with an electric cable. It was horrible.”

Carr says the incident never happened. “It’s total fiction,” he told ‘New York’ magazine. “She got steamed because I started to call her Kenny. It was supposed to be a little joke, to relieve the tension that I knew she was a man. Look, why do you think she never tucks her shirt in? Because it would reveal the true shape of her body! Kenny Shapiro is a big guy. I mean, just look at her hands some time. She could rip the throat out of George Foreman.”

In the interview, Carr states that he first met Kenny Shapiro at a 1971 party given by Andy Warhol. “I find female impersonators particularly loathsome,” said Carr. “But it was a Warhol party so I had to lay back. That night Kenny Shapiro told me this plan he hatched back in 1961 when he stole the identity of some two-bit model named Martha Kostyra. He said he would soon become famous as a celebrity homemaker named Martha Stewart. He had the whole thing worked out and had been paying this Kostyra broad for years to go along with the hoax. I swear to God it happened. Why do you think she’s so upset!”

The suit is expected to proceed to New York District Court in February 2004.

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