Rift rocks tea slurping stars!

An explosive, bitter fight between roly-poly (but not so roly-poly as he used to be, after following Vanessa Feltz's 'If I Can, You Can!' classic 2001 workout DVD) comic Johnny Vegas and his petite primate co-star, Monkey, has rocked the filming of the latest PG tips ad. Friends fear the pair may never work together again after the vicious spat.

The popular ads show the two enjoying flavonoid antioxidant tea as only a man and ape can; portraying a beautiful friendship developing over mutual hot beverage love. A close personal friend of mine however, claims that a simmering tension has been brewing between the duo for years.

"It came out of the blue," said a reliable source, "Monkey jumped onto the table and caught Johnny's eye-line as he was doing an intense close-up to camera, holding a boiling, steaming kettle. Then all hell broke loose. I've never seen anything like it, not in all my three months of working in this industry."

My reliable source continued, "Vegas screamed at Monkey to get out of his line of vision and that he was a fu**king distraction; an amateur; an unprofessional fu*k up and that he was trashing his scene. He bellowed at him to get off the set, or he would kick his f'ing ass. Monkey screeched back that they were f'ing done professionally and called Vegas a f'ing fat ass. He claimed that Johnny was even more cringe-worthy onscreen than the guy who plays 'Dev' in 'Coronation Street'. Then he stormed off, throwing teaspoons and smashing crockery akimbo."

"Monkey has locked himself into his executive trailer, drinking himself into a stupor and screaming foul-mouthed abuse, and a red-faced Vegas is pacing menacingly about the set in his dressing gown, growling that there is no way he's gonna apologize to that amateur f'ing tw*t of an ape," added another of my reliable sources and close personal friend, Martin Scorsese, who wishes to remain anonymous.

Due to his experience in the 1998 film, 'The Negotiator', Kevin Spacey has been drafted in to mediate between the two warring stars, breaking off from his Old Vic directing duties on 'Turquoise is my Valley of Sausages and Charcoal Shandy' - the hit ten act Latin play by Marjorie-Ann Lisspfield-Flyte - to do so. The atmosphere is fraught and all hopes now rest on the Hollywood stalwart.

PG are trying to promote what they call a 'tea mind' - a state of tranquility; so this tragic tiff could spell disaster for them. They may be left heamorrhaging money like a used triangular teabag over a sink, dripping all it's flavour into a dirty drain.