Hollywood- Hollywood’s nastiest girlfight just got nastier. Playboy Playmate Nicole Lenz has filed a $1 million suit against former party pals Bijou Phillips and Casey Johnson, accusing them of “slander, battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress.”
Lenz charges in Los Angeles Superior Court that Phillips, the actress daughter of the late Mamas and the Papas singer John Phillips, “punched her in the face with a closed fist and violently pulled her hair” at an MTV party earlier this month inside an L.A. club.
Lenz claims she suffered “a good deal of neck pain” after Phillips allegedly dragged her around by her ponytail.
She contends that Band-Aid heiress Johnson, the daughter of Jets owner Woody Johnson, “encouraged Phillips” to “carry out this unprovoked attack.”
Lenz alleges Phillips also screamed “obscenities” at her, calling her “a thief, a whore and a prostitute” – all in front of “important” show business players.
The 20-something model charges that Johnson, her former roommate, joined Phillips in “conspiring” to “irreparably harm her reputation” by planting newspaper stories falsely claiming that Lenz attacked Phillips at the club and stole over $750,000 in jewelry from Johnson’s house.
Johnson’s spokeswoman, Jill Eisenstadt, whom Lenz claims helped plant the stories, declined comment.
A rep for Phillips, the former girlfriend of Sean Lennon, did not immediately return calls.
Lenz – who, according to published reports, is rumored to have co-starred in a homemade porn video with Paris Hilton – filed a temporary restraining order against Phillips on June 17.
At least she can rest easy in L.A. for one night. Phillips and Johnson are due to strut the catwalk tonight at the Charlotte Summer 2004 collection show at the Hotel Gansevoort here.
The N.Y. Post adds: THE catfight pitting Hollywood hellion Bijou Phillips and jiggly Johnson & Johnson heiress Casey Johnson against Playboy pinup Nicole Lenz is headed to the courtroom.
Lenz has filed a $1 million lawsuit against Phillips and Johnson in Los Angeles over an incident in which Phillips allegedly punched and kicked Lenz at an MTV after-party.
The suit claims the dishy duo have been spreading lies to “influential persons in the entertainment industry” that Lenz burglarized Johnson’s home and stole $750,000 worth of jewelry while the heiress was vacationing in Mexico.
“For motives which are still not entirely clear to plaintiff, defendants Casey Johnson and Bijou Phillips, both of whom are young, privileged heiresses to large family fortunes, have joined forces to viciously smear plaintiff’s good name, and have gone so far as to physically attack her without any provocation,” writes Lenz’s lawyers, Martin Singer and Paul Berra, in the suit.
As PAGE SIX first reported, Lenz obtained a restraining order against Phillips and Johnson after they confronted her at L.A. club XES on June 6, where Phillips attacked Lenz, punching her and dragging her “across the room” by her ponytail, according to the suit. Lenz claims the actress was eventually pulled off her by Matthew Perry of “Friends” and thrown out by security.
The next afternoon, Lenz says she was again menaced by Phillips when they ran into each other at a charity event in Pacific Palisades. “Shortly after plaintiff arrived, Phillips proceeded to yell obscenities at her and loudly called plaintiff a ‘whore,’ a ‘prostitute,’ a ‘thief’ and other derogatory terms,” according to the suit.
The suit also claims that the Los Angeles Police Department, after searching Lenz’s apartment and interviewing her “several times,” does not consider her a suspect in the alleged burglary of Johnson’s jewelry.
The accusations that Lenz stole Johnson’s jewels have “greatly damaged her present and future earning potential as a professional model and actress,” the suit says.
Attached to the court filing is a PAGE SIX item detailing Phillips’ history of violent behavior, including cutting off the tip of a friend’s finger with a cigar cutter, stabbing another friend in the leg and slamming a socialite to the ground at a nightclub.
Reps for Phillips and Johnson did not return calls for comment.