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From our gilded mailbag:

In the early edition of today's Post, Page Six ran an item about an incident at Plumm on Wednesday night. Apparently, Guns & Roses was playing some sort of live show, and Tommy Hilfiger was in attendance. Somehow, Tommy Hilfiger and Axl Rose got into a scuffle, ending when Hilfiger clocked him across the jaw and was escorted out by security.

The story is not online, and it's not printed in the late edition Post we have here in the office. I'm kicking myself for leaving that shit on the subway.

Innneresting! We don't have a copy of the first edition, so we can't confirm anything (but if you do, send us a scan and we'll give you some candy). It's the case of the phantom gossip item — and why was it removed from later editions? Was it written with disappearing ink? Was the story total bullshit, and Page Six caught it a bit too late? Or did Axl bury this one, for fear that the people would learn that he got punched by little Tommy Hilfiger?

UPDATE: No scan, but the P6 item read as follows:

Fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger better watch out the next time he runs into Guns N' Roses frontman Axl Rose. Hilfiger and Rose got into a heated argument last night at the trendy Chelsea nightspot Plum, sources told The Post. Rose, who was there to put on an acoustic guitar show, got into a heated row with Hilfiger for reasons that remain mysterious. Not happy with how the verbal exchange was going, Hilfiger punched Rose in the face, leaving a red mark under Rose's eye, witnesses said. Hilfiger was promptly escorted out of the club by security guards. Rose stayed and eventually performed for the crowd.

We still want to know why the Post removed the item. Was Hilfiger threatening to withhold free rugby shirts?

UPDATE 2: A reader from LA writes:

Axl was on KROQ (a local mainstream pop/rock station) this morning doing an interview, appaearntly G&R is headlining a concert they throw every year in Septmember. Anyways what AXL HIMSELF said about the scuffle was that he was simply moving Tommy's girlfriends drink so it wouldn't get knocked over. Tommy flipped, yelling "What the fuck?!?!" at Axl and then told him not to "fucking touch her fucking drink" and things just went south from there. Axl also said that Kid Rock saw the whole thing and told him it was "totally Detroit."

After the jump, the beatdown is corroborated by a just-received press release*, courtesy, it seems, of Axl's PR people.

*Since when did Axl need a publicist? Slash wouldn't stand for this shit.

Tommy Hilfiger was carried away by his own security people kicking and screaming after attempting to pick a fight with Guns N' Roses main man Axl Rose at The Plumm on Thursday night.

According to The Plumm owner Noel Ashman, Hilfiger who took two swings at Rose, was fortunate that he found Rose in good spirits and a forgiving mood. Ashman said "Axl was a gentleman and had the good sense not to retaliate as he would have done some serious damage to Hilfiger."

Rose, who was at the club to play a surprise acoustic set with his band Guns N' Roses for actress Rosario Dawson's birthday party, filled out a police report and later dedicated the song "You're Crazy" to "My good friend Tommy Hilfiger" during the band's scorching performance, which left the way beyond capacity crowd screaming for more and gasping for air well into the wee hours of the morning. Said birthday girl Dawson of Rose: "They've never played all acoustic, this is history in the making, how much does this fucking man rock?!"