Celebrity News

US shows double standard after barring Nigella entry for drug use

TV chef Anthony Bourdain on Thursday ripped the decision to bar fellow foodie Nigella Lawson from the United State as hypocritical in light of crack-smoking Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s visit to LA during Oscars weekend.

“Toronto mayor, Rob Ford? Welcome to the USA. Nigella Lawson? No. REALLY? Absolutely appalling misuse of our system. And by whom? How?” Bourdain wrote in a blistering Twitter post.

The US Embassy in London confirmed that Lawson — Bourdain’s co-star on ABC’s “The Taste” cooking-competition show — was denied permission to board a plane to America on Sunday.

Anthony Bourdain and Nigella LawsonGetty Images

Spokeswoman Lynne Platt wouldn’t say why the self-styled “Domestic Goddess” was rejected, but the embarrassing incident at London’s Heathrow Airport followed Lawson’s testimony last year that she had snorted cocaine and smoked pot.

US Customs and Border Protection, which declined to discuss Lawson’s case on privacy grounds, noted that foreigners can be denied entry if they “have been convicted of, or voluntarily admit to having committed a crime involving moral turpitude.”

Leading immigration lawyers said Lawson — who visited New York in January to promote “The Taste” — could win a waiver to allow her back into the US if she cooks up a convincing reason.

The lawyer, Michael Wildes, said waiver applications are considered on a case-by-case basis, which is why Paul McCartney is free to travel the US despite several pot busts, while notorious druggie Amy Winehouse couldn’t attend the 2008 Grammy Awards, where she won five trophies.

“The truth is if the government wants Paul McCartney in the United States, and sees the talent and the philanthropy and the contributions and the money involved in concerts, promotions and events, we find there is a politic that allows one to get something where another wouldn’t,” said Wildes, whose lawyer dad helped John Lennon avoid deportation over a 1968 pot bust in England.

British legal experts noted that Lawson, 54, may have to prove she’s not an addict by getting examined by a doctor under contract to the US Embassy.

In 1975, then-US Ambassador to Britain Walter Annenberg helped the Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards get a US visa, conditioned on his passing a blood test, according to a 2003 biography.


Keith Richards, Boy George and Paul McCartneyGetty Images/Splash News/WireImage

While Nigella’s barred from US soil, here’s a few other celebs who are still allowed entry:

Keith Richards

Regularly tours US with the Rolling Stones, despite repeated drug busts, including getting caught with 22 grams of heroin in Canada in 1977 — for which he had to perform a free concert for the blind.

Boy George

Recently allowed to enter the US to promote his new album after being banned for falsely imprisoning a male escort in Britain in 2008. In 2005, he beat a coke rap in New York City, but got community service the next year for a false burglary report.

Paul McCartney

Initially denied a visa in 1973 for growing pot on his farm in Scotland, but was later allowed in. Since then, he’s played at the post Sept. 11 “Concert for New York City,” 2005 Super Bowl and a surprise concert in Times Square last year.