To print this page, select "Print" from the File menu of your browser salon.com > People July 16, 1999 URL: http://www.salon.com/people/col/reit/1999/07/16/amyfri Is Ricky Martin on the mommy track? Singer says he wants grande family; Jerry Hall on the unfathomableness of love; this week's fun couple: Richard Simmons and Janet Reno. Plus: Rosie O'Donnell, editor in chief? - - - - - - - - - - - - By Amy Reiter Is he or isn't he? Ricky Martin, the hard-bodied, soft-voiced Latin singer tackles questions about just what kind of vida loca he's livin', sexually speaking, in an interview in the upcoming issue of Rolling Stone. "It's a lot of fantasy," he says of the rumors that he's gay, before adding that the fantasizers should "Go for it. Be free about it." The energetic entertainer says he's not too concerned about what people say about him. "You can think what you want to think. I know what I am, my beliefs, what I like and don't like ... The people I care about know me. I'm happy." Still, he says, his personal, romantic life is "what feeds the artist, the one who goes onstage. You have no idea how I protect my personal life [laughs]. With a knife in my mouth." Martin tells interviewer Nancy Collins that he'd like to have a steady relationship -- though perhaps not marry because, he says, "the word marriage scares some people" -- and have kids, "lots of them. I want to have a mess of toys in my house ... Me tripping because of a toy in the middle of the living room." The 27-year-old music machine even has the mother of his kids all picked out: 34-year-old TV exec Rebecca de Alba, whom he's dated on and off for nearly a decade. He claims he admires her femininity, sensuality and ability to pamper herself. "I need a woman who really knows how to take care of herself," he says. If, in fact, he needs a woman at all. - - - - - - - - - - - - Well, I used to love him ... "Romance is unfathomable. It's always changing. You think you're going to be together forever! Then suddenly, everything's different." -- Former model and current mom Jerry Hall on the devolution of her lengthy, recently annulled marriage to Rolling Stoner Mick Jagger. - - - - - - - - - - - - Richard Simmons: Queen for a Day "I believe television is ready for a happier show," Richard Simmons told reporters this week as he revved up for the launch of his new bouncier-than-a-really-good-pair-of-aerobics-shoes TV show, "Dream Maker." Describing his new gig as "'Touched by an Angel' with gifts," Simmons says it's all about helping people realize their life dreams: blood transfusions, days off work, a chance to do deep knee bends aboard the Goodyear blimp. In one episode, he even arranged for an 80-year-old nun to meet the pope. Simmons' own fantasy is as kinky as you might imagine: "To have lunch with Janet Reno. I know that sounds silly, but I love her." So why stop at lunch? - - - - - - - - - - - - $1 million whistle blower "Just because I'm governor doesn't mean I have to stop having fun." -- Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura on why he's not sullying his political office by accepting a huge fee to step into the wrestling ring as a World Wrestling Federation guest ref. - - - - - - - - - - - - Juicy bits Will the first ladies of TV talk soon be duking it out in print? According to MSNBC's Jeannette Walls, Rosie "Doesn't anyone call me the Queen of Nice anymore?" O'Donnell is fixing to give Goddess of all media Oprah Winfrey a run for her newly minted magazine money by launching her own publication, which she may call either Cutie Patootie or Sweet Pea or Sweetie Pie. But while Oprah's magazine is a go with Hearst publications, Rosie has apparently not gotten any bidders to bite at hers just yet. (One for the style file: Rosie's people are reportedly thinking of doing every issue in a different colored typeface -- tangerine one month, turquoise the next.) "We're not interested in Rosie," Condé Nast CEO Steve Florio told the New York Post. Now really, is that any way to treat a cutie-patootie lady? British "readers" of Playboy won't be jamming on their joysticks quite the same as U.S. "readers." Britain's High Court has forbidden the sensitive skin magazine from featuring the image of Lara Croft, the zaftig computer-generated heroine of the video game Tomb Raider, on its cover. According to the court and the game's producer, the use of the character and game trademark, which were also to run next to nudie cutie-patootie pix of real-life Lara promotional model Nell McAndrew, would mean the animated heroine's "squeaky clean image" would be "tarnished for all time." Or at least a little stickier. salon.com | July 16, 1999