JERRI MANTHEY, the bongo-playing bartender on “Survivor: The Australian Outback,” was a Hooters girl in the early 1990s and had a red-hot fling with visiting celeb Lou Diamond Phillips.
Jerri, now 30, and the “La Bamba” star hooked up at Hooters — and wound up having wild sex in a Volkswagen Beetle while a crowd looked on!
“They were attracted to each other right from the get-go,” Eric Probst, her former Hooters manager, told The ENQUIRER.
“Jerri and her sister Grace were among the original waitresses when Hooters opened a restaurant in Huntsville, Ala., in 1992.
“And as Hooters girls, they suddenly became mini-celebrities in Huntsville. Everybody in town knew who they were.
“They’d get invited to openings, they’d get paid to do promotions and they were allowed into nightclubs free.
“They were on the radio, they did volleyball tournaments and wet T-shirt contests.
“Even visiting rock bands and movie stars stopped by wanting to meet the gals.
“Not long after we opened for business, I took a call from actor Lou Diamond Phillips.
“He told me he was coming into town and wanted to come in to Hooters but he didn’t want to eat or drink. Lou just wanted to come in and see if any of the Hooters girls wanted to go out dancing with him.
“He came to Hooters directly from the airport. The airport limo dropped him off right in front of the restaurant.
“I asked the girls who wanted to go out partying with Lou and just about everyone did.
“Remember that at the time, he was a pretty hot movie star — he’d done ‘La Bamba’ and more recently ‘Young Guns,’ and was riding pretty high.
“All the girls loved him. But Jerri Manthey and her sister Grace won out, and they took off for a local disco, Club V, in Grace’s little VW Bug.
“It had a baby seat in the back seat. Grace had a little boy who she’d leave with her mom and dad to babysit while she’d go out partying, then she’d pick him up.
FAST FACT!
Lou’s real name is Lou Upchurch — his stepfather’s name is Phillips.
“Well, the baby seat was still strapped into the back when Lou got into the car. Jerri and Lou were sitting together in the back — only Lou was scrunched into the baby seat half hanging out!”
At the club, Jerri and Lou worked up a sweat on the dance floor before going out to the parking lot for some fresh air. But instead of cooling off, things between Jerri and Lou started heating up, an insider disclosed.
“They were in the car talking and then they started necking. One thing led to another and pretty soon, Jerri and Lou were going at it like a pair of tigers in heat!
“They started making love right there in that cramped little VW Bug. They had to make the front seats recline so they’d have enough room, and they were sprawled between the front and the back. Jerri and Lou were so caught up that they didn’t seem to care that a crowd was forming and they were being watched by people walking by. About a dozen people saw it.”
An eyewitness revealed: “There were people all around in the parking lot and she and Lou were going at it in the Bug. It was shocking. But even then Jerri was a wild child. She knew what she wanted and went right after it.”
Afterwards, Jerri even bragged about the experience.
“She said Lou was a terrific lover and that she’d had the time of her life with him,” said the insider.
“Jerri knew she would probably never hear from Lou again — and she didn’t.
“But she didn’t seem to care.
“She took the experience for what it was — a wonderful one-night stand.”
Lou isn’t the only celebrity Jerri has dated — former “NewsRadio” star Joe Rogan recently said on his Web site that he went out with Jerri too.
— MICHAEL GLYNN and JIM NELSON
