Hollywood bully-blogger Nikki Finke has apparently escalated her bonkers feud with Bret Easton Ellis and his agency ICM to previously unheard-of levels of Nikki-tude: According to the Hollywood Reporter, ICM has hired attorneys to get Finke to stop "harassing" the agency's employees. Among the charges: "Finke told top ICM employees she would reveal their home addresses and where their children go to school."

To recap: Finke, who is notoriously, even clinically, reclusive, blew a gasket last week after I informed her that a) Ellis wrote on Twitter recently that Finke lives in his building, and b) I had learned that her employer Penske Media had indeed recently purchased a unit in that building. Finke did not like this! According to Ellis, as well as a report in the New York Observer, she called his agent at ICM and unleashed an unhinged rant, threatening to "destroy" Ellis and ICM for the crime of revealing the location of her lair. Yesterday, Ellis revealed on Twitter that Finke had also sent "hectoring, threatening, vaguely litigious e-mails" to the management of their building.

Now it appears that ICM isn't taking Finke's outburst lying down. According to THR (the parent company of which, it should be noted, is currently engaged in litigation with Finke's employer), ICM has hired a law firm to fire off cease and desist letters instructing Finke to leave its people alone. The letters, THR says, accuse Finke of threatening to trash ICM on her site, Deadline, if the agency doesn't immediately drop Ellis. Not to mention the thing about children:

Sources who have seen the cease-and-desist letters say the letters also claim that Finke has told top ICM employees she would reveal their home addresses and where their children go to school. Finke also is alleged in the letters to have told at least one agent that she would write things damaging to the agency on the Deadline blog that the agency's executives believe to be false.

A lawyer for Penske Media told THR that "there is absolutely no validity to any of the claims that have been alleged in the letters."

If true, it actually wouldn't be the first time Finke threatened to train her sights on the children of her enemies: The first time Finke ever threatened to sue me (for the offense of reporting on her), she told me she'd "own my kids" when she was through with me. She later told me she was just kidding. So, so funny. Surely this is all just a practical joke gone wrong.