All those shots of Jesse James looking adoringly at Sandra Bullock from the audience during awards season certainly had us believing they were a great couple.
Maybe they were, maybe they weren't.
Stripper Michelle "Bombshell" McGee, who told In Touch Weekly that she had an affair with the Monster Garage mechanic, had her last sexual encounter with James at least eight months ago at the hotel on board the historic Queen Mary in Long Beach, Calif., claims McGee's close friend and former roommate, Lindsay Sinai, in an exclusive interview with E! News.
Sinai, who says she has never met James, heard that he and McGee hooked up romantically only three or four times before their supposed final tryst at the ship's hotel.
James, who's been married to Bullock since July 2005, issued a public apology today to the Oscar winner and his three kids from previous marriages in which he said that "the vast majority of the allegations reported are untrue and unfounded."
The seemingly remorseful hubby did not, however, specify, Tiger Woods-style, why he is so sorry and deserves "every bad thing that is coming [his] way."
As McGee told In Touch, Sinai says her friend thought James' marriage was on the rocks when they got involved and she felt bad when she found out he and Bullock were still very much together.
James supposedly said "he couldn't talk about it and that [Bullock] was living somewhere else. That was a subject that was stayed away from the entire time. There were no specifics," Sinai says.
But in Sinai's opinion, McGee's reported relationship with James was "casual" at most.
"Their relationship was more like a friendship," she says. "Nothing was ever said about a future. Once she did realize [Bullock and James] were together, there was a lot of regret there."
Their initial meeting was of the virtual variety, and things progressed quickly. "[McGee] friend-requested Jesse James [on MySpace] and he started writing her out of the blue," Sinai says. "[Michelle] was like, 'Oh my god, Jesse James is writing me. Oh my god, Jesse James is calling me.' He said he wanted to hang out with her. She ended up driving up to the garage."
That's where the relationship supposedly turned sexual, Sinai claims.
"Right away he started texting, calling," she says. "It was just an on-and-off thing for quite some time. It wasn't like an ongoing affair, not in a physical sense, the entire time."
Sinai was told that James asked McGee for "dirty pictures" a few times, but that most of his texts were "innocent."
As for the reported attraction between the motorcycle man and the heavily inked McGee, Sinai said it made perfect sense to her.
"He's a biker, tattooed bad boy. That's what she likes," Sinai said of her friend. "Him and Sandra, they don't really fit. She's way too good for him."
Sinai hears that though they haven't seen each other, McGee and James were in touch not too long ago—but that they have not been in touch since, er, In Touch's affair story broke.
"When she was doing the interview, she texted him and he texted right back that he was thinking about her," Sinai claims.
Speaking of that interview, in which McGee claimed she nicknamed James the "Vanilla Gorilla," Sinai says she understands it to mean that the reality-TV star is "supposedly well-endowed."
As for McGee, who has two kids, Sinai says she's "very normal."
"She stays inside a lot. She goes to work and goes home and goes to bed early. She's still in San Diego. She's just at home right now letting it all sink in."
(Originally published March 18, 2010, at 10:50 p.m. PT)
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