Playmate vs. Party Girls

Wed., Jun. 30, 2004 2:00 PM PDT by Lia Haberman

Sharpen your claws. A late-night catfight has turned into a $1 million legal battle between Playboy Playmate Nicole Lenz and professional party girls Bijou Phillips and Casey Johnson.

Lenz has accused her former friends of "slander, battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress." In plain terms, Phillips allegedly bitch-slapped Lenz at a Los Angeles nightclub and then called her a whore and thief.

The smackdown has been played out daily in newspaper gossip columns, with the New York Post initially fingering Lenz as the "violent" instigator at the Virgin Cola MTV Awards after-party June 6 at XES.

The story also hinted that Lenz had trashed Johnson's place ("Nicole took advantage of Casey," said a rep) and may even have burgled her former roomie, stealing $750,000 worth of jewelry while Johnson was vacationing in Mexico.

Lenz moved quickly to clear her name, telling the Post, "Bijou jumped me! I was just standing there and this girl punches me in the face and starts dragging me by the hair. Matthew Perry had to take her off me and she got thrown out of the club."

She also slapped a restraining order on Phillips, sometime actress and offspring of Mamas and the Papas singer John Phillips, and Band-Aid heiress Johnson, daughter of Jets owner Woody Johnson.

Now, Lenz has filed a $1 million suit in Los Angeles Superior Court against the two pampered pals, claiming she suffered "a good deal of neck pain" after Phillips allegedly dragged her, caveman style, around the room while Johnson cheered from the sidelines.

"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," per court documents.

The twentysomething model contends that Phillips and Johnson conspired to do irreparable "harm to her reputation" by calling her "a thief, a whore and a prostitute" at a subsequent Pacific Palisades charity event.

In addition, the suit accuses them of planting the bogus Post story that blames Lenz for the nightclub attack, while accusations that she stole gems from Johnson have "greatly damaged her present and future earning potential as a professional model and actress," the suit says.

Lenz, who's rumored to have starred in a second Paris Hilton porn tape, has been investigated and interviewed "several times" by the LAPD and isn't considered a suspect in the Johnson jewel heist, according to court documents.

A hearing on whether a judge should extend Lenz's temporary restraining order against Phillips is set for next Tuesday in Santa Monica.

It hasn't been a particularly good year for Phillips, half sister of Chynna Phillips and Mackenzie Phillips. The wild child recently called it quits with boyfriend and fellow pop music progeny Sean Lennon. Then last week she and party pal Nicky Hilton were banned from L.A. restaurant Il Sole for a drunken nipple display, per the Post.

Phillips, who's previously dabbled in music and modeling, also has a reputation for her hard-partying ways. An addendum to the lawsuit lists her violent outbursts, which include slicing off the tip of a friend's finger with a cigar cutter, stabbing another friend in the leg and body-checking another socialite to the ground at a nightclub.