Heidi Fleiss + Tom Sizemore
Once a Hollywood Madam, always a Hollywood Madam…
Although Heidi Fleiss is years removed from her colorful past – including her turbulent romance with actor Tom Sizemore, who died recently at the age of 61 – the thought of her moving to the Show Me state near Little House On The Prairie namesake Laura Ingalls Wilder makes for a jarring vision.
Face it, a woman whose Wikipedia page has the headline, “Prostitution and Tax Evasion,” moving to tiny Mansfield, Mo. to open an exotic parrot preserve is an eyebrow raiser.
Yet while practically everybody in the free world was on that story one year ago, it never happened, and Fleiss’ next move remains to be learned…
That is, until now.
“Missouri sounded great – like so many acres of forest for my birds – but then I went there and it was right next to a trailer park – and it was decrepit,” Fleiss says. “I put $50,000 down and got $40,000 back, but the seller kept 10 grand for lost income from her rental cabins that were like Unabomber shacks.”
So what exactly drew the former Hollywood Madam to Mizzou?
“I happened to find Missouri beautiful,” she says. “And from my limited research, I didn’t notice that the temperatures fell below zero, but when it gets down to 18 degrees here in Nevada, my birds love it. I have a little over 30 now and most of them are at the end stages of their life.”
Macaws live an average of 60 years – 35 to 50 in captivity – and up to to 100.
Fleiss post Mizzou plan?
“I’m going to move to Las Vegas in about 8 months, and my park will be open to the public all the time,” she says. “Most Macaw owners just want to teach them to say bad words and dance, but they’re not great talkers.”
The recent death of her ex, dirtbag actor Sizemore – “Saving Private Ryan” and “Blackhawk Down” – catapulted Fleiss back into the news. And while I recall her being wary of his down and dirty ways, “I was never fearful of him,” she now says. “We loved each other a lot, but when we broke up it was ugly and there were some abuses. We tried to deal with it, but we couldn’t.
“Tom was a great actor – and very smart – but not the best person. But when he wanted to get back together, I told him I was gay, and I am gay.”
Fleiss current plans: “HBO Max is doing a series scripted on my life,” she says. “But I don’t know their exact time frame.”
Does she miss anything about Sizemore?
“You know what, it was consensual sex,” Fleiss says. “There was no Jeffrey Epstein weirdo shit – that’s disgusting.”
Her Wildest Sizemore memory?
“We would have so much fun at home,” she says. “Talking about books we’d read and making fresh juice and things like that. And we’d make the bed together, but when it went bad, it went very bad. And Tom was very smart – his father was a professor at Harvard – it’s so weird to read that he’s gone. It’s just weird.”
That said, “We were talking every day this year, and I talked to him the day he died.”
Speaking of Fleiss Missouri connections, she’s friends with acclaimed KC photographer Greg Gorman and is a big Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes fan.
“But I bet on the birds, so I was for the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl,” she says. “So I lost, but any kind of bird teams are my favorites.
“And I saw the video of Patrick’s brother,” she says. “Tom sent me a video of Jackson Mahomes dancing and said, ‘You’ve got to see this.’ We were cracking up. There’s one in every family.”
I got to admit, in very few words, Fleiss described Missouri perfectly.
Uh, ouch…