In brief: Faithfull missed out on sexy song because of jealous Jagger

Marianne Faithfull (pictured here in 1974) has claimed that she was French crooner Serge Gainsborough’s first choice to sing with him on the legendary 1968 pop song Je T’Aime... Moi Non Plus, but she turned it down because she feared that it would make her then boyfriend, Mick Jagger, jealous. In the end, Gainsborough plumped for Jane Birkin. "I don’t know how he got Jane to do it because she was such a lovely, English, upper-class schoolgirl,” says Faithfull, 61, before answering her own question: “But of course he would have got her to do it by seducing her”...Republican presidential candidate John McCain is in trouble for a remark he made at a town hall meeting; answering a question about American cigarette exports to Iran, he said: “Maybe that’s a way of killing them”...Several of the BBC’s most senior executives have received pay rises of more than £100,000 a year, despite fakery scandals and job cuts at the corporation; they include Jana Bennett, director of vision, whose salary has risen from £433,000 to £536,000... Phil Spector, the legendary music producer accused of killing Lana Clarkson, is being sued by a group of musicians that he once managed. Members of The Crystals, Bobbie Soxx and the Blue Jeans and The Ronettes - who include Spector's ex-wife Ronnie Greenfield - claim the eccentric music mogul failed to pay them the royalties... Gary Oldman has shot back at Oliver Stone, the man who gave him his big break in the Oscar-winning movie JFK: “Oliver Stone thinks I’ve lost my edge... Yeah. But then I’ve looked at the last couple of things he’s done and I could perhaps say the same thing”... Carla Bruni's new album, in which she sings of her love for her husband, President Nicolas Sarkozy, can be heard for free online from today. Listening time will be limited to two hours...