After All the Bad Publicity, Publicist Ready to Leave Jail

NEW YORK â€”  For publicist-to-the-stars Lizzie Grubman, there was the scandal, the media skewering, the mea culpa and the click of handcuffs. Now, in a drill Grubman knows well, there’s the comeback.

Grubman is scheduled to get out of jail today after doing time for backing her Mercedes SUV into a crowd outside a nightclub, then bolting, leaving 16 injured.

She will have served 37 days of a 60-day sentence at the Nassau County Jail, having gotten time off for good behavior.

The publicist’s publicist, Dan Klores, knocked down rumors that Scene 1 of Grubman’s second act would be an exclusive network interview.

“I’m sure she’ll be back at work on Monday, raring to go,� he said. “Her work ethic is second to none.�

Grubman, 31, built a thriving business promoting careers and parties for the likes of Britney Spears, rapper Jay-Z, hip-hop mogul Sean “P. Diddy� Combs and the Backstreet Boys.

She was jailed Oct. 23 after pleading guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and assault charges in the incident outside a Hamptons club in the summer of 2001. A teary Grubman apologized to the victims of the crash -- “I’m haunted by it daily� -- before she was led away in handcuffs.

It was hardly hard time. Reports in the city’s tabloids -- some generated by Grubman in jailhouse phone interviews -- revealed that she occupied herself reading a Danielle Steel novel, snacking on Oreos and winning an election as representative of her tier. Life on the inside also meant giving a flannel Victoria’s Secret nightgown to a fellow inmate who was cold, and signing autographs for other inmates.

“Most of the inmates were rather fond of her,� defense attorney Stephen Scaring said.

Grubman earned top-10-list status on David Letterman’s “Late Show� -- her (purely fictitious) No. 1 complaint about jail: “You can’t, like, leave� -- and advice from Long Island Lolita-turned-columnist Amy Fisher.

Fisher, once jailed for shooting and wounding the wife of her auto-mechanic boyfriend, warned Grubman about a common jail affliction -- foot fungus. “It would look hideous all squished up in a new pair of Prada shoes,� she wrote.

The crash heightened tensions between locals on the east end of Long Island and the wealthy out-of-towners who flock there every summer. Some locals viewed Grubman, the daughter of a high-powered entertainment attorney, as just another rich, spoiled outsider.

The Grubman tale was told in an ABC-TV documentary on the Hamptons. The New York Post sponsored a contest that awarded an SUV like the model Grubman drove. Top associates defected from her public relations firm, as did A-list clients.

Klores said Grubman’s only offense was being “young and blond and ambitious,� and predicted her business would rebound.

“The past year and a half has taught her the invaluable lesson of humility,� he said.