Love Story

Okay, I suppose domestic abuse isn't funny, but...well...it really sorta is, especially when a celebrity family suddenly breaks out into an episode of "The Jerry Springer Show."

See how many Maury Povitch moments you can spot in this recap of a typical weekend at the Ryan O'Neal household:

The incident happened after O'Neal arrived home after dining out with a group of friends, including his former girlfriend Farrah Fawcett, according to O'Neal's manager and a friend who attended the dinner. The group had been celebrating Fawcett's 60th birthday and that she was cancer-free after four months of treatment.

In a statement, the 65-year-old actor said Griffin [O'Neal, Ryan's son] was at the house and began "wildly swinging a fireplace poker."

His son grazed him four or five times and "aimed at my head, I ducked, he hit his own [pregnant] girlfriend in the head," O'Neal said in an interview published Monday in the Los Angeles Times.

"I got a little nervous at that point and fled to my room ... and I got my gun," he said.

O'Neal said his son began to come up the stairs with the poker. "So I just fired it (the gun) into the banister, and that scared him and he fled," he told the newspaper.

Good times. Please, somebody snag me a Thanksgiving invite over there.

A friend of Ryan O'Neal's backed his account, while adding some important visual details:

Charlie Mattera, a close friend of O'Neal who had been at the dinner and arrived at the house shortly after the incident, said O'Neal told him that when he got home Griffin was beating up his younger brother, Redmond.

"Griffin attacked his brother, Redmond, smashing an ashtray over his head," Mattera told The Associated Press. "Ryan walked into this and told Griffin to get out of the house. He couldn't do anything but protect himself and Redmond."

But O'Neal's daughter, [Oscar-winning actress] Tatum, said it was Griffin who was trying to protect Redmond.

So if you're keeping score at home, Oscar-winning actress Tatum O'Neal (who was formerly married to volatile tennis star John McEnroe) says that her brother Griffin (who was once convicted of contributing to the boat accident that killed Francis Ford Coppola's son) was trying to protect his half-brother Redmond (who is Ryan O'Neal's love child with Farrah Fawcett, who is currently recovering from anal cancer) from the elder O'Neal, who was accused of punching out Griffin's teeth in 1983. And Griffin's pregnant girlfriend was injured in the melee.

And Griffin O'Neal is today agreeing with sister Tatum and disputing his father's account of events. About the only way this story could become more surreal is if ubiquitous harpy/media-whore attorney Gloria Allred somehow were to wedge her way into it.

Wait for it...

Ryan O'Neal was responsible for injuries his son's pregnant girlfriend suffered during a confrontation with the actor at his Malibu home last weekend, a lawyer for Griffin O'Neal told reporters Wednesday.

Joanna Berry, who is expecting a baby at the end of March, suffered facial lacerations that took eight stitches to close, as well as head trauma and a corneal abrasion during the confrontation, said [And...the payoff!] attorney Gloria Allred.

..."We vigorously reject any assertion that the injuries suffered by Joanna and Griffin were as a result of Ryan O'Neal's acting in self- defense," Allred said in a statement handed to reporters at the beginning of a news conference in her office. Allred then immediately shriveled up and died when the television lights, from which she derives her energy and evil powers, were shut off after the conference. [Okay, I added that last sentence myself.--JR]

So, like, is this an Irish thing?

Okay, I know that's a wildly inappropriate and politically incorrect thing to say, and of course I'm joking. But I am hoping and praying that VH-1 picks this up as a reality show posthaste. Are you telling me you wouldn't watch this?