Jose Lambiet

Gossip extra

Fiancée notably absent from Heat’s LeBron James’ side lately

 

Gossipextra.com

Are LeBron James and fiancée Savannah Brinson, the mother of his two children, on a relationship break?

Brinson, 26, James’ high-school sweetheart, has not been seen by his side in weeks, including at two important milestones in a basketball star’s life.

She wasn’t with him at last weekend’s All-Star Game in Houston or on the Heat’s championship congratulation visit to the White House in January.

What’s more, Gossip Extra was told that the couple briefly planned to get married sometime last summer, seven or eight months after James proposed on New Year’s Eve 2011.

The nuptials haven’t happened — even after Brinson, the mother of James’ sons LeBron Jr., 8, and Bryce, 5, attended an Ines di Santo bridal show to pick a wedding gown.

“Ms. Brinson visited a bridal market in New York,” said a manager at Ever After Miami, a store in Coconut Grove that carries the fancy di Santo bridal line. The woman declined to give her name. “But any other information about Ms. Brinson would be confidential.”

James proposed at his 27th birthday party at the Shelborne in South Beach. A pear-shaped diamond was involved, and photos of the bauble were tweeted to the world.

James’ summer, however, got busy with NBA championship celebrations and the Olympics.

Gossip Extra was told several news organizations were angling for exclusive access to the ceremony, but talks broke down abruptly with no explanations sometime in late summer.

No one in James’ tight-knit camp’s talking, including one of LeBron’s lawyers reached by Gossip Extra.

Several urban websites, meanwhile, reported Brinson was the only Heat significant-other not in attendance when the Heat visited President Barack Obama.

And last weekend, according to Brinson’s own Twitter feed, she was “roughing” it on Catalina Island off Los Angeles with girlfriends while James starred in the All Star Game.

Together again

The beauty and the beast, reunited!

TV series actress Hayden Panettiere and heavyweight boxing champ Wladimir Klitschko seem to have rekindled the two-year romance they abandoned in 2011.

Panettiere, 23, jetted to Hollywood over the weekend to hang with the hunky 36-year-old boxer.

The Heroes star, now on ABC’s Nashville, was spotted waiting for Klitschko to end his grueling paddle board workout. He is scheduled to fight a yet-to-be-determined opponent in May.

The boxer, according to records, owns a $3.5 million penthouse at the Villas of Positano on the north side of Hollywood Beach.

The couple was also seen cuddled up Monday at Taco Beach Shack, also in Hollywood. A spywitness said Panettiere munched on a grilled mahi-mahi taco and washed it down with a margarita in the time that Klitschko downed six tacos and a Coke.

The one that got away

The 187-foot Lady Linda, Fort Lauderdale’s most luxurious private yacht, is now the subject of a new book set for release by Simon & Schuster March 5.

In Grand Ambition, G. Bruce Knecht tells about the recent construction of the $40 million floating palace by Las Olas venture capitalist Doug Van Allmen through the eyes of the $10-an-hour workers who built it.

While the walls inside were being covered with rare burl wood, the floors paved with onyx and the AC cooling and heating systems rigged to work outdoors, Von Allmen was also going broke. He allegedly lost $100 million to Ponzi-scheming lawyer Scott Rothstein.

Because the ship is now practically un-salable, Von Allmen is reduced to chartering it for $500,000 a week.

“The tank holds 22,000 gallons of diesel,” says Knecht. “It costs $200,000 to cross the Atlantic. ... If there is a moral to the story, it’s that many of the $15-a-hour people who worked on the boat are happier that the rich people who own it,” Knecht said.

Read more Jose Lambiet stories from the Miami Herald

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