KANGAROO JACK - O'CONNELL SHOCKED BY DIAMOND PRICES

JERRY O'CONNELL was so shocked by the price of diamonds when he was hunting for an engagement ring for his fiancee REBECCA ROMIJN, he was tempted to buy her a cubic zirconia instead.

The KANGAROO JACK star proposed to blonde beauty Romijn last month (SEP05), and handed her a stunning diamond ring after she accepted. But he admits that he'd have happily settled for a cheaper gem, because he knows so little about jewellery.

He says, "The scariest part is getting the ring, because I have never bought a piece of bling in my life. First of all, I never realised how expensive jewellery is. It's really expensive!

"And then you learn the different stones. There's diamonds, which are everybody's best fried. But I learned what a cubic zirconia is, abbreviated as CZ. And I was like, 'Wow, look at all these jewels, this is amazing! What's that big one there?' They were like, 'Oh, that's CZ - cubic zirconia.' And I was like, 'How much is that one?' They were like, 'Substantially less.' I was like, 'Well, what's wrong with those?'

"It's not a diamond, though - and if you get caught you're busted! You can't get busted with CZ. Now if I were a rapper and I had to have a lot of jewels for work, I'd have CZ all over me."