Buttafuoco Hits The Airwaves
Add talk-show host to the resume of Joey Buttafuoco. The Long Island Lothario's half-hour talk show on cable access premiered Thursday, joining the ranks of the Eggroll King, porno aficionado Colin Malone and a horde of cult celebrities who by law are allowed free airtime on cable that otherwise wouldn't make it on commercial TV.
"This is a forum for anybody who has been jammed up by law enforcement, who has been abused by the media, who has been chewed up and spit out by the system," Buttafuoco said in an interview.
Buttafuoco served four months in jail after pleading guilty to the liaison with Amy Fisher, who was 16 when she shot his wife, Mary Jo, in the face in May 1992. Buttafuoco also was given five years' probation, and last year he went back to jail for violating that probation by soliciting sex from an undercover cop on Hollywood's Sunset Boulevard, a crime, he maintains, he never committed.
The Buttafuocos moved from New York to Los Angeles about two years ago with their two children. Besides the talk show, Buttafuoco is pursuing an acting career and works at an auto body shop.
The show, which airs Thursdays at 11:30 p.m. on public access cable, opens with shots of a leather-clad Buttafuoco tooling around West Hollywood on a motorcycle.
Various shots include his name on the marquee at the Whiskey club on Sunset Boulevard. A rock guitar sets the mood as a chorus chants "Joey, Joey, Joey, Joey Buttafuoco," the only lyrics in the short introduction.
The set is simple: two office-type chairs and a dark background. His guests, like himself, are scandal-ridden and probed for details about their brush with infamy.
His first guest was Divine Brown, who was arrested in Hollywood in 1995 while engaging in a sex act with actor Hugh Grant in a car.
Brown, whose real name is Estella Thompson, says she is still down-to-earth despite all the attention.
"I'm still the same person," said Brown.
Other guests include actor Jan Michael Vincent, whose career has been marred a history of substance abuse and at least two alcohol-related car accidents; Liza Greer, a contributor to the bestseller You'll Never Make Love In This Town Again, a tell-all about how famous people have sex; and his wife Mary Jo, who was caught in a nearly fatal love triangle with her husband and his mistress.
By Oscar Musibay.
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