When I finally fired her for that and her erratic behaviour she screamed ‘This is going to cost you a lot

When I finally fired her for that and her erratic behaviour, she screamed, ‘This is going to cost you a lot of money’. The stresses of life as a supermodel were laid bare when it emerged that the row that led to Naomi Campbell facing an assault charge began when she allegedly could not find a pair of jeans. Prosecutors in New York revealed yesterday that the 35-year-old British model had been looking for the trousers she wanted to wear for an appearance on Oprah Winfrey’s television show when the confrontation began with her housekeeper.
Ana Scolavino, 41, claims Ms Campbell hurled her mobile phone at the back of her head after accusing her of stealing the trousers when they could not be found at Ms Campbell’s £2m Manhattan apartment.The allegations from Ms Scolavino, who needed four stitches when she went to hospital after the altercation, coincided with a concerted media campaign by both sides to discredit each other’s stories.Ms Campbell said she had sacked the maid because items had gone missing from her home and described claims of an attack as “completely untrue”.The model has a history of rows with employees and, six years ago, pleaded guilty to striking her personal assistant with a phone during a tantrum. The avowed Beatles fan now knows exactly why John Lennon sang of reading the news about “4,000 holes in Blackburn Lancashire” in the lyrics of “A Day in the Life”.

Mr Straw explained that there used to be “a man with a clipboard” in Blackburn charged with counting the number of potholes.. She dedicated it to people protesting peacefully outside before she began to sing. Halfway through the song she broke into “Give Peace a Chance.”Mr Straw recognised in a speech at Ewood Park that the invasion of Iraq was “controversial and, by God, it was here in Blackburn”.At least Ms Rice’s trip along the long and winding road between the two cities will clear up one mystery that she said had always puzzled her. The institute’s founder, Sir Paul McCartney, was not present.

One performer, Jennifer John, said her appearance depended on being allowed to sing John Lennon’s anti-war anthem “Imagine”. Jon Netton, a student, said it was a “disgrace” that Ms Rice had been invited “We wish she hadn’t been invited. Students at the institute, where a handful of protesters braved the rain, complained they had been informed of the visit in an e-mail only last Wednesday.As Ms Rice, arrived, she was booed and jeered. Their parents pulled them out of school for the day after the headmaster, Robin Campbell, rejected their appeal to withdraw the invitation to Ms Rice.The two-day shuttle between Blackburn and Liverpool, the 2008 European capital of culture, to show off the “real” Britain had unravelled even before it began. A visit to a Blackburn mosque was cancelled amid anger over Mr Straw’s lack of consultation before he issued his invitation to the Ms Rice.”It shows a certain insensitivity on Jack Straw’s part, as Foreign Secretary, not as an MP, because of what is happening in Iraq,” said Dave Harling, a Labour councillor, who was against the war. “It’s not appropriate that she comes here.”The Stop the War coalition which is staging protest rallies in Blackburn and Liverpool, says it is opposed to the two-day visit by a “warmonger and torturer”.But the embarrassment for Mr Straw, in the constituency which he has held for 27 years, did not stop there.

Outside forces intervened; Sky Television delayed to Monday a football match between Mr Straw’s home team, Blackburn Rovers, and Wigan, originally scheduled for today.So Ms Rice found herself watching the junior team of the Blackburn academy warm up at Ewood Park as a rare ray of sunshine lit up the stadium, and police helicopters circled.By yesterday afternoon, rumours were rife that some members of a gospel choir who were to perform at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts for Ms Rice wanted to pull out. At the next stop, outside a school, there were pupils among a group of 150 protesters chanting: “Hey, hey, Condi Rice, how many kids did you kill today?” It can be grim up north when you’re the American Secretary of State, and one of the architects of the war on Iraq.
Making her first trip to the North-west on a return invitation from Jack Straw, she had to run the gauntlet of local protests which dogged every event. But the number of demonstrators was lower than expected, particularly in Liverpool last night where just 1,000 people showed up for what had been billed as the largest demonstration ever seen in the region.Ms Rice put on a brave face. She told teenagers on the student committee inside Pleckgate High School in Blackburn: “People have a right to protest. I’m not just going to visit places where people agree with me That would be really unfortunate. Each individual all over the world has the God-given right to express themselves.”Some of the pupils exercised that right. The party reignited the row over funding as it published details of £16m still owed to wealthy supporters, but confirmed it had repaid money to anonymous backers, some of whom were not registered to vote in Britain..