Nov. 8, 2007

It's a dangerous proposition to flip the bird to Fabio, whose bodice-ripper-ready face has twice been dive-bombed by some seemingly suicidal feathered friends.

But that reportedly didn't stop George Clooney from raising his middle digit to Fabio's dinner guests at Los Angeles eatery Madeo on Nov. 2, leading to a sublimely ridiculous "Punk'd"-meets-David Lynch-ian fracas between the A-lister and Z-lister.

TMZ.com has obtained pictures from the night in question, which shows the well-marbled slab of beefcake posing as the Oscar-winning Sexiest Man Alive gives the finger in the background.

Seems Fabio was dining with a group of women as part of a charity event, but Clooney, who was breaking bread with surprisingly enduring arm candy Sarah Larson, believed shots of him were surreptitiously being snapped.

George's invasion-of-privacy suspicions soon led the lantern-jawed, flowing-locked Harlequin staple-turned-margarine-shiller to make a beeline for his table.

"I thought you were a nice guy," admonished Fabio, according to In Touch. "Stop being a diva."

Um, snap?

At that point, tempers are said to have flared, although we're guessing both men did their best to ensure their pretty faces remained untouched.

Clooney and Fabio reportedly tossed around a few four-letter words before things turned physical (alas, this only involved some shoving, not the two duking it out in a ring filled with "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter").

"The waiters broke it up before it got out of hand," a spy tells the magazine.

Clooney, whom another witness said "wasn't drunk, but he certainly wasn't stone sober, either," purportedly paid his bill and skedaddled with Larson.

"The women and I were taking pictures of us together only. The women were not taking pictures of George," Fabio insists to "Access Hollywood." "Out of courtesy, I even went over to George's table to explain that to him. I just feel badly that it ruined the night of these women who paid to support charity. I am thinking of something to make it up to them."

(Somehow, we think he's gonna have a hard time topping a tussle with a real live movie star.)

"Clooney started on 'ER' and Fabio was going to send him back there," his manager adds to "Access."

Oy.

George, who, unlike his far less famous rival, doesn't need the press, has declined to comment on the incident.

This apparently isn't the first time the two stars (OK, one star and one Trivial Pursuit answer, but moving on) have squared off.

A member of Clooney's inner circle tells the Chicago Sun-Times the bad blood started several years ago, when both ended up waiting in the green room at a talk show.

The actor didn't like what he perceived as the once frequently oiled-up model's rude and "very sexist" behavior toward a female crew member. Words were exchanged, with Fabio quoted as telling Clooney to "[bleep] off."

''And ever since then," the source maintains to the paper, "on the rare occasion when they've run into each other [at movie premieres, etc.], they have either ignored each other or made 'stage whisper' insults within each other's earshot."

By the by, on the off chance you're in need of some cocktail party small talk, here's a refresher on Fabio's odds-defying bird-in-the-face incidents, both of which took place -- we kid you not -- on amusement park rides.

In 1996, he suffered a broken nose when a small winged creature smashed into his beak at Busch Gardens Tampa. Three years later, a goose collided with his virile and presumably nestlike visage at Busch Gardens Williamsburg.

Neither bird lived to tweet the tale.

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