Pop star Shakira and Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters have formed a join business venture and bought a 700 acre island in the Bahamas called “Bonds Cay.” It reportedly cost $16 million. Shakira and Waters plan to build a luxury resort as well as sell prime seaside property on their new island. Spanish singers Alejandro Sanz and Miguel Bose are said to be building mansions there next year.

Colombian born singer, Shakira, apparently already has a paradise of her own, after buying her own island in the Bahamas. In order to do this, she has formed an association with Roger Waters of Pink Floyd, as well as noting the interest of Spanish singers, Alejandro Sanz and Miguel Bose.

The two stars have created ‘Bonds Cay’, an island of 700 acres situated north of the Bahamas and 125 miles from Florida. The island, that has five beaches and three bays as well as numerous waterfalls and rocky areas, was acquired by the association for $16 million.

Both Shakira and Waters have stated that they are intent on building a luxury hotel on the island, as well as a number of other residences with private beaches. Both Spanish singers have acquired land on the new island, and are expected to build mansions there next year.

Shakira is doing well professionally. She took home four awards at the Latin Grammys last week, including album of the year, best song, and best record. She will begin shooting a movie with Rodrigo Santoro from “Lost” next year in Romania, called “Dare to Love me.”

Shakira is also no slouch in the charity department, and has been a UNICEF goodwill ambassador since 2003. Here she is speaking at a UNICEF event in San Salvador on Sunday. [via]

All that frantic PR work by Tom and Katie seems to have paid off, because Tom has just been named head of United Artists film studio. He inked a deal that will gives him and partner Paul Wagner complete control over production at UA, along with giving him the freedom to star in films put out by other studios if they’ll have him:

The sweet deal gives the pair — whose film productions include the Mission:Impossible movies, War of the Worlds, and The Last Samurai — complete control of the studio’s production slate, expected to be about four films a year, and allows Cruise to appear in films from other studios. Wagner will rule the roost as chief executive of the storied company, owned since 1981 by MGM but founded in 1919 as a haven for artistes by D.W. Griffith and actors Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks.

Cruise and Wagner Cruise hit biz-bottom in August when his and Wagner’s 14-year producing deal with Paramount was not renewed by the studio. Sumner Redstone, chairman of Paramount parent company Viacom Inc., publicly blamed Cruise’s bizarre behavior — his unhinged love declarations for Katie Holmes on Oprah and elsewhere, his dogmatic defense of the more contentious aspects of Scientology, in particular the wholesale rejection of psychiatry and medication — for suppressing public enthusiasm for their Mission:Impossible III film, a “disappointment” at the box office, even though it generated over $390 million worldwide.

“As much as we like him personally, we thought it was wrong to renew his deal,” Redstone told the Wall Street Journal. “His recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount.”

Putting it even more bluntly, Hollywood legend Lauren Bacall slammed Cruise’s behavior in an ‘05 Time magazine interview. “His whole behavior is so shocking. It’s inappropriate and vulgar and absolutely unacceptable to use your private life to sell anything commercially, but I think it’s kind of a sickness,” she said.

Cruise and Wagner 2 Apparently UA/MGM felt otherwise. “There is a complete alignment of interests in this deal,” MGM chief operating officer Rick Sands told the AP today. “They are equity owners in the company and they share with us in the upside.”

Good for him I guess. I’m going to mention this as an aside instead of running a separate story about it, but I spent a week e-mailing with a guy who claims to be “Big Red,” the male hooker that supposedly had a rather tame gay wrestling romp with Tom in the late 90s. The guy didn’t tell me his story and I kept e-mailing with him back and forth, hoping that he would write something I could publish.

He claimed that the story told by another guy, Barresi that we published here was inaccurate, and that it didn’t go down like it was claimed, but the guy wasted my time and didn’t give any details. Here’s the relevant part of our e-mail exchange. Again, I cannot verify that this is the person he claims to be or that this is anything more than a person who strung me along via e-mail for a week, but here’s what he said:

Segment of one e-mail toward the end of our exchange: I just do not think the story I have to tell is what you are looking for but I will think about it.

Another e-mail: I am actually looking to build Tom Cruise up not break him down

Last one I received: I’m not getting a good vibe from this at the moment - - I think I will wait and I may neveer publish the real story - - afterall, I believe in Karma and Barresi will have to deal with his.

It sounds like whatever happened, it was even less sensational than was claimed, at least according to this person who contacted me and got my hopes up about running this big exclusive. (I even contacted a lawyer and a cult expert about how to proceed, which may be why he got a bad vibe. You can’t be too careful with the c0s.) This guy claims to live in Europe now. The book by Barresi says that he left the states after the news of his supposed romp with Cruise got out, but I can’t be certain what’s true at this point. Tom Cruise is weird and is involved in a harmful freaky cult, but whether he actually had a gay wrestling session is up to question.

Gee, guess that absolves him of all the gay rumors so he’s definitely fit enough to run a studio. Look - he even reproduced and he’s getting married! There are photos of his baby in Vanity Fair and everything.

Here are Tom and Kate at Connor’s soccer game on 11/5. That’s what the photo credit says but it looks like they were taken on two separate days as Tom is wearing a different shirt and got a much-needed haircut in the interim. Katie is wearing the same outfit though so maybe it’s just the angle and Tom changed his shirt. Thanks to KatieHolmes.com for these pictures.

Nicky Hilton is promoting her new Nicky O Hotel, and I guess that the posterboard collage she made to announce it wasn’t cutting it for her, so she enlisted the help of a bunch of nude models. The press version will undoubtedly feature hands and props covering all the right places, but these candids show the models in all their buff glory.

Nicky recently dumped her boyfriend, Kevin Connelly. There were rumors that Connelly was cheating on her, and Nicky was overheard screaming at someone on the phone and yelling “I hate you.”

From the look of the railing next to Nicky, her hotel needs some work before it’s launched. In a poorly-worded press release, Nicky O’s hotel in South Beach, Miami promises to mix a social celebrity experience with Nicky’s vision of luxury, including the scent of gardenias throughout and mini cupcakes on guest’s pillows.

A few weeks ago, YouTube founders said they wouldn’t take less than $1.5 billion to sell the company. We thought that was a BS number and that they just didn’t want to part with their baby.

Google ended up paying $1.65 billion for it, with that insane amount of cash supposedly justified by YouTube’s exclusive distribution rights with television and music companies. The two elated YouTube founders, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, recorded this off the cuff video outside a San Bruno TGI Friday’s.

User-populated YouTube is still having copyright issues with legally restricted content, and it’s unknown if Google will make people subscribe or if they’ll flood the videos with ads. It seems like YouTube is in good hands, though, as behemoth Google has a great reputation and already has relationships with many of the companies claiming copyright infringement against YouTube.

This news makes me nostalgic for the good old days when I could quit a job out of boredom and get several new offers within a week. Paper millionaires were abound, and wide-eyed freaks called themselves evangelists while using bullshit words like “synergistic” and “mindshare.” Sadly, nearly every place I worked, especially the ones with the Aeron chairs, coffee bars and foosball tables, went out of business.

Hurley and Chen are now hot properties, and it wouldn’t be surprising if they start showing up at events with a famous model or actress in tow.

According to insiders, Paramount is set to offer Brad Pitt the lead role in Mission Impossible IV. Pitt will star in the next installment of the MI series, all three of which have featured Tom Cruise as agent Ethan Hunt. Pitt is set to play a new agent who manages his own kick-ass team.

Paramount cut ties with Cruise after offering him a contract paying less than a third of his previous operating expenses. Cruise has since launched his own production company, financed in part by the owner of the Washington Redskins.

Sources say that Paramount will give Pitt an offer he can’t refuse, making him the highest-paid actor in history:

Pitt might be able to revitalize the MI series, which seems to be doing fine even with Cruise at the helm. MI3 did well at the box office, grossing almost $400 million, but it didn’t do quite as well as backers were hoping. MI2 took in over $540 million.

Here is Pitt on the set of Oceans 13 on 8/24. [via]

The Beckhams are in Venice to promote their new fragrance line. In a press conference interview they denied that Victoria is pregnant, but made no secret that they’d like another child and would like to try for a girl. David said that Tom Cruise’s daughter, Suri, is gorgeous and after seeing her pictures it makes him want a girl even more. Victoria said that she’d like to get pregnant again when the time is right, most likely next year

Victoria looked casually elegant in an off the shoulder Miu Miu dress, while David coordinated in a matching cap and a slightly darker vest thrown over an untucked shirt and jeans.

Pictures [via]

Jessica Simpson and her BFF hairdresser Ken Paves shot an infomercial for their line of hair extensions, Hair Do. Simpson is the only blonde in the room, but you can see her get visibly jealous when Paves styles the fake hair on two different brunettes. She looks a little out of place, like she’s waiting for direction from Paves. You know that skinny guy must have a master plan, and that he cut her hair just a little shorter each time until he could suggest she put some extensions in. Then he buttered her up and asked her to go into business with him. Worked like a charm.

When I saw these pictures, I just wanted to caption them. Two more pages of captioned sets.

Pictures from SweetKisses.net, and you can get Jessica’s extensions online.

Jessica gets jealous

Jess makes Ken a mint

Tom Cruise has inked a production deal that could earn him $2-3 million a year for overhead. He will still have to find investors to make movies, however. This is a significant paycut for Cruise, who was dropped by his production company, Paramount, after its curmudgeon CEO cited his behavior as the reason for not renewing his contract. Blaming Cruise’s antics seems to have been smokescreen. Reason dictates that Cruise wasn’t worth the hefty paycheck and large amount of profits he demanded at a time when Paramount was cutting corners.

Cruise used to get $10 million a year for production costs from Paramount. When they cut their offer to $2 million he announced that he was starting his own venture. Now he has some unlikely investors, and insiders say this shows that his star value is fading fast:

While I eagerly searched for evidence of involvement in the church of Scientology by Cruise’s three main investors, I could find none. A Google search and search on TruthAboutScientology.com yielded no results for any of the three main investors. Dwight Shar, the director of Six Flags and owner of a home building company, is a big contributor to the Bush campaign, but that’s the only cult he seems to be involved in.

Meanwhile research reveals that big-name actors don’t deserve their huge paychecks. Besides, movies like “Harry Potter” do extremely well at the box office without featuring top stars.

First the end of swag, and now the death of the big movie star. What’s the entertainment world coming to?

Here are Tom and Katie outside the Yahoo! offices in Santa Monica, in what I’m pretty sure are older pics, and some recent blurry ones of them having dinner at Orzo restaurant in Hollywood on 8/23.

Pictures from KatieHolmes.com.

Tom Cruise has been relieved of his contract with Paramount Studios. At first the word was that he’d have to take a paycut of more than 75%, but now the studio is dropping him entirely. Instead of releasing a carefully worded statement that they’re cutting costs and have enjoyed working with Cruise, which is undoubtedly forthcoming, the head of Viacom, Paramount’s parent company, told the Wall Street Journal that Tom’s behavior was unacceptable!

Tom has got to be pissed. He travelled around the world in a crazed frenzy to promote MI3, all while supposedly having a non-existent newborn at home. That’s not enough for Paramount, because they want a star with average ambition and a verifiably normal home life.

A little more including pictures of Tom and Katie out to dinner are after the jump.
(Read more…)