Controversy in Sydney: A rough diamond

Sydney's Sunday Telegraph, March 21.

Reformed hippie chick Jewel discovered that fame doesn't exactly open the right doors in Sydney.

In town to promote her new album, Spirit, the 24-year-old Alaskan-born singer and a couple of hangers-on strolled across from their Double Bay hotel, the Ritz Carlton, to hot new nightclub The Embassy. Imagine thier surprise when they were denied entry by doorman David Panizzuti because they did not comply with the dress code. It seems that at this chic, Cross St haven, even $250 designer jeans are deemed inappropriate dress.

"Jewel was actually fine," said one witness, "but she didn't want to go in without the other two and they didn't want to go back to the hotel and change."

Needless to say, the thrillseekers did not take this well. At first, the guys tried unsuccessfully to push their way past the hunky Panizzuti, then they started uttering profanities.

"It was ugly," an Embassy spokeman confirmed. "They used the kind of language not often heard in the Bay."

Jewel was also unimpressed. "Don't you know who I am?" cried the woman who once did it so tough that she was forced to wash her hair in department stores. The group vowed to go to the media to report how badly they had been treated.

Chrissie Camp, the national publicity manager at Jewel's record company, Warner Bors Music, said she knew nothing about the incident or the one mentioned below.

"Jewel has now left the country," she said, "So, it's a little hard to get hold of her."

The remainder of the group's trip did not go down well with the locals, either.

Restauranter George Fischer, who has Fischer's coffee shop just across from the Ritz-Carlton, was not thrilled when some of Jewel's entourage swept out of the eatery, having clean forgotten to pay a $82 bill (blame it on that pesky jetlag).

Thankfully, another hotel guest was there at the time, recognised the group and volunteered to take the bill back to the hotel.

"Someone came back and paid $14," said Fischer, "so now I'm only owed $67." Isn't life grand?

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