Star Magazine has an inset story on their cover this week all about Sandra Bullock’s $20 million defamation lawsuit against her scumbag ex, Jesse James, for talking smack about her publicly. However, the story just says that Sandra could file a suit against Jesse if she were so inclined and that she could make it for around $20 million, according to some expert Star found. They only go so far as to quote a vague “source” who claims Sandra is considering it. My favorite part of this story is where Star speculates that Sandra won’t sue Jesse, also as they’ve speculated, because Jesse could potentially have some awesome dirt on her that he would bring out during a lawsuit. Isn’t this what we’ve heard all along? Like how can Sandy, “America’s Sweetheart,” have married a douchey neo-Nazi and still have kept her pristine public image? However, I think that Jesse was so butt hurt by getting rejected after cheating on Sandra that he would have already spilled Sandra’s secrets if he had any. Here’s more of Star’s story:

One month after shocking accounts of her husband’s wild cheating drove Sandra Bullock to file for divorce in April 2010, an emotional and repentant Jesse James appeared on Nightline and claimed, “I still have hopes of saving some sort of relationship with Sandy.”

Now it seems those sentiments were hollow, because the words Jesse has used over the last year to publicly describe his life with Sandra have been dipped in venom.

And his latest thinly veiled broad-side against her — when he sneeringly referred to how he had “married some Hollywood actress… I’m not what I became,” during a recent appearance on the reality series American Chopper: The Build-Off — could end up hurting him where it hurts the most: in his wallet!

An insider tells Star magazine that while Sandra, 47, “has consistently taken the high road by never talking about Jesse since their split, I don’t expect her to play the shrinking violet forever if his jabs have secretly been causing her emotional distress.”

And she has a powerful weapon at her disposal to strike back. Sources tell Star she could hit Jesse, 42, with a defamation suit, with one legal expert telling Star that “asking for $20 million in damages would not be out of the realm of possibility…”

Sandra “has every right to initiate a defamation lawsuit against her ex husband if she believes that any of the public statements he’s made about her have been defamatory,” noted NYC defamation lawyer Richard Ancowitz tells Star…

“I imagine that even the prospect of legal action would lead his lawyer to counsel Mr. James to keep his thoughts about Ms. Bullock to himself…”

“If Jesse keeps revealing personal information about Sandra, she could also stop him by suing for invasion of privacy,” Aaron Morris, a defamation attorney… tells Star…

Though Sandra’s rep denies that she is considering legal action, the legal source adds that she could also “go after Jesse for breach of contract if they had signed confidentiality agreements as part of their divorce.”

There is a possible consequence that could keep Sandra from taking action, the legal source tells Star. “It could open the door the defendant to disclose more embarrassing personal information as a defense against the claims. That information would then become public in the court record.”

[From Star Magazine, print edition, December 26, 2011 and via OK!]

This “lawsuit” is as much a figment of Star’s imagination as Jennifer Aniston’s pregnancy with twins, but it’s still fun to speculate about. You know that Sandra is just actively ignoring this guy and he keeps throwing jabs at her hoping to get some kind of response. She’s not going to say a thing about him and that hurts his widdle ego more than anything.

Sandra has been doing the press rounds for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, in which she plays the widow of a 9-11 victim. She’s only in the film for about 20 minutes, and the lead is the young boy who plays her son, Thomas Horn. She has a new interview on The Today Show in which she talks about her personal experience with the September 11 attacks (sad) and about hearing the last messages that victims left their families (double sad). Families shared the messages from their loved ones to help with research for the film, and Sandra called those “an incredible gift.” She does have a fun rapport with Matt Lauer and gives him crap throughout the interview, but it’s not enough to lighten the mood. Watching the press for this film just gives me the impression that it’s not going to do well at the box office given the subject matter. It may get some nods at awards time, though, especially for Horn.

These photos are from the 12-15 premiere of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and also feature Thomas Horn and Tom Hanks. Credit: WENN.com