Celebrity News

Hoffman’s bogus ‘gay lover’: I was drunk

A New Jersey man who allegedly duped the National Enquirer into believing he and Philip Seymour Hoffman were secret gay lovers claimed on Wednesday he was drunk that day and can’t remember what he said.

“As the day went on, I had a bunch of beers in me,” said David Katz, who allowed the Enquirer to believe he was actually Hoffman’s longtime pal, David Bar Katz.

The freelance TV sports producer said he was bombarded with calls on Super Bowl Sunday from reporters looking for the real Katz, who found the actor dead of an overdose that day.

“I don’t remember what I said . . . but the thing about the gay lover? No, not while I was sober anyway. I don’t remember. I don’t think so.”

On Feb. 5, three days after Hoffman died, the Enquirer published a story that claimed David Bar Katz had talked to them — and revealed to the tabloid that he and his late friend were “homosexual lovers” and that he watched Hoffman freebase cocaine and shoot heroin.

David Bar Katz sued for $50 million and scored a big settlement that included a full-page apology ad in Wednesday’s New York Times.

The Enquirer said it “made a good-faith error by publishing an interview with a person who falsely and convincingly claimed to be Mr. [David Bar] Katz.’’

The “real” Katz set up the American Playwriting Foundation in Hoffman’s honor with some of the settlement money.

His lawyer, Judd Burstein, said he intends to sue the alleged imposter Katz, with any proceeds going to the new charity.

“People go to jail for drunk driving,” Burstein blasted. “He is going to lose everything for talking drunk.”

The Jersey Katz also played the part of Bar Katz to a Post reporter the day Hoffman died, saying, “Yes, I was the one who found him. But honestly, right now isn’t the time to talk about this. I don’t really want to think or talk about it right now. ”

On Wednesday, the Jersey man denied he was the one on the phone.

“I absolutely never told anyone my name was David Bar Katz,” he said.

“I swear to you, on God, I never said I was anybody.”

But Katz clearly enjoyed the publicity when he bragged on Facebook on Feb. 11, “If you make it into Cindy Adams’ column in The Post, you’ve made it in New York. “

One pal replied, “This is what happens when you find dead junkies.”

Another wrote, “You still getting traction with this dead actor thing?”