The latest issue of In Touch, not the most reliable source I know, claims that “The Honeymoon is Over” for Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes and that Cruise limits Katie’s time on the phone with friends and has tried to change her interests and hobbies. They say that Katie was chatting with Kirsten Dunst and Orlando Bloom at their second wedding party/stateside Scientology recruiting blitz, and that Tom shut her down when she mentioned an interest in going to the exclusive nightclub Hyde. The article draws a lot of conclusions about Tom and Katie’s home life and implies that Katie is Tom’s shadow of her former self:

Tension was already in the air at Tom and Katie’s LA wedding reception on December 9, where a guest saw Katie talked to Kirsten Dunst and Orlando Bloom about the Hollywood hotspot Hyde.

“Katie was asking what it’s like and saying she’d never been,” the onlooker shares. “Kirsten and Orlando were telling her that a lot of their friends go.” But when Tom walked up and joined the conversation, the tide turned. “Kirsten said they had invited Katie to Hyde, and Tom got a concerned look on his face. He said, ‘Oh, that’s no plance for you or me to go, Kate.’”

When Katie walked off with Tom, 44, “she looked really embarassed,” the witness says. “It was like she’d just gotten into trouble.”

[From In Touch print edition, January 8, 2007]

If this is indeed a true quote, I would guess that the “guest” that overheard it was one of the servers, but who knows if it’s accurate?

The article goes on to say that Tom forces Katie to keep her phone calls with girlfriends short, and has convinced her to give up her favorite hobbies like ceramics, painting and singing Karaoke. The only things that she seems able to do are Tom-approved activities like shopping, attending his children’s sports games with him, and taking up his hobby of learning to fly an airplane. He is also controlling her career and insists on having approval of any new projects she takes on.

They say that Katie seems to be comfort shopping as she routinely drops tens of thousands of dollars on clothing and shoes with no concern for the price.

If all this is true and is more than conjecture on In Touch’s part it wouldn’t be surprising. Cults retain power over new members by limiting their social contacts with outsiders and coercing them into adopting a new identity so they can’t escape back to their old one. It seems like Scientology’s most visiible spokesperson Tom is using those same tactics in his relationship with Katie. I for one am not fooled by their PR wedding and cute baby.

Here are pictures of Katie out shopping on 12/19.

Tom Cruise’s rep is kept busy denying frequent rumors about the cult-loving couple. He says “To our knowledge, Katie is not pregnant.”

Mollygood spotted a pretty pominent bump on Katie while she was out shopping wirh Cruise’s daughter. She’s either pregnant or has poor taste in form-fitting clothing.

Meanwhile there was this crazy rumor that Victoria Beckham was being tipped to play an alien bride in a big screen adaptation of the Scientology belief system called “The Thetan.” Cruises reps have denied this is true, and the story is obviously false on first reading:

Victoria Beckham is reportedly set to star in Tom Cruise’s new Scientology film. The Spice Girl has apparently been lined up to play an alien bride in The Thetan - based on the bizarre sci-fi cult, which believes in alien life forms.

Victoria is said to be “thrilled” about getting her big Hollywood break. A source told Britain’s Daily Star newspaper: “Victoria is really hoping to make a go of it in Hollywood. This could be the perfect start for her, with good pal Tom Cruise in charge.”

The 32-year-old - who made her first attempt at acting in the 1997 Spice Girls movie Spice World - will play the bride of an alien leader called a thetan, which Scientologists claim is an immortal spiritual being, present in all humans.

Cruise - who is bankrolling the project himself after it was rejected by all the major film studios - is said to have picked Victoria for the role after being impressed by her “comic
genius”

Commentor Sprynkles points out on the Gossip Rocks bulletin board that the Scientologists go to great lengths to keep their belief system private. They charge quite a bit of money before they reveal to inductees their belief that thetans, or the ghosts of people killed in a giant volcano, haunt all of us, causing our psychological problems. They would never make a movie like this, but it’s quite a funny thought.

Katie Holmes, who may or may not be pregnant, had her 28th birthday on Monday.

Tom Cruise was photographed looking at a new $380k plane in LA. There’s no work whether he bought it. Pictures from FlynetOnline.

Get a load of that freaky picture of Tom sitting on a throne with Connor and his best man, the head of Scientology’s David Miscavige, beside him. Word is that Miscavige accompanied Tom and Katie on their honeymoon on that tug boat yacht in the Maldives. He must have been along to advise them of the best ways to start a marriage according to the random drug-fueled teachings of L Ron.

Madonna seems uncomfortable at first in this appearance on the Home Shopping Network. She soon gets into her haughty stride, talking down her nose in her faux-Brit speak about how Lourdes helped her with these books, and how she came up with her nefarious plan to convert a new generation of vulnerable young girls to her cult religion.

You can watch the rest of the interview on YouTube:
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

Proceeds from the books are being donated to “Raising Kabbalahan Malawians” or whatever Madonna’s charity is called.

Thanks to moomies on Gossip Rocks for linking this.

Back in early August we reported a rumor from the PopBitch e-mail newsletter that elusive baby Suri had yet to be seen because she had a large birthmark. The eagle-eyed Celebrity Baby Blog has confirmed that rumor by pointing out that Suri has a birthmark on her forehead that’s visible in the latest candids of her out with her parents in Rome. When compared to the pictures of Suri in Vanity Fair, which were said to be airbrushed because she was a “runt,” it’s clear that the pictures were Photoshopped to remove the mark.

We’ve been very excited to see the new photos of Suri Cruise, 7 months old, taken this week leading up to Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ wedding. These first candid photos of their baby are exciting for several reasons. The first is that we’ve been deprived of photos of her since her Vanity Fair debut, the second is that we’ve been deprived of candid photos of her up to this point, but thirdly because the photos reveal what may be the true reason Suri has been kept out of the public eye.

We’d like to call your attention to what appears to be a slight but distinctive birthmark located in the middle of her forehead between her eyes visible in several photos that was not visible in the Vanity Fair photos. It was rumored that there was a lot of airbrushing involved in her Vanity Fair shoot and this is what was probably airbrushed. In these new candid shots of her, her thick black hair is combed forward, most likely in an attempt to conceal the mark. Of course, it is also possible Suri fell and bruised her face.

We don’t know what type of birthmark this is, but it’s likely they have tried to have it removed or reduced because the color is very subtle.

There you go, although I still think the Scientologists, who are keen to comment on this blog as well as influence online polls, kept Suri out of the public eye according to the random, drug-fueled teachings of their leader L Ron.

No matter this minor birthmark, Suri sure is cute.

Here are pictures of Tom, Katie and Suri heading to their rehearsal dinner on 11/16. [via]

Now Madonna has revealed what everyone suspected after she bought a ton of designer girl’s clothes - she wants a half-orphan daughter, too. This sounds like a made-up quote to me, but it could be true. Maddona supposedly told French magazine Paris Match that she wants to snatch a Malawian baby girl quickly to “redress the balance” in her family or some such shit. It sounds like she can’t stand the fact that Britney got divorced and her name is no longer in the papers this week:

Asked in an interview if she wanted another child the 48-year-old answered: “Yes, absolutely. I’m going to adopt another Malawian child very quickly. A baby girl this time, in order to redress the balance”.

The 48-year-old said that Lourdes and Rocco would be involved in the ‘choice’ of their new baby sister but she wanted them to have time to get used to 13-month-old David Banda - who Madonna is in the process of adopting - first.

She also refused to take responsibility for flouting the adoption laws in Malawai, which require prospective parents to stay in the country for a year and a half, by claiming that someone contacted her first about going to the impoverished nation. This sounds like more of the bullshit she usually spouts:

In the interview with Paris Match she said: “It was not me who chose Malawi, but it chose me. “A native of the country contacted me though my association, Spirituality for Kids which I publicise in all my shows.

“She helps a lot of orphans in Malawi and she told me about the childhood poverty, and the dreadful mortality rate.

“She asked me for help as my fame could help focus on the problems.

“I started my own inquiry and I said to myself: ‘They need help!”

She is surely helping the Malawians convert to Kabbalah, that’s for sure.

Pictures from I’m Not Obsessed and Daily Mail.

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.

“I now pronounce you Man and Girl.”

If you thought the Scientologists’ way of giving birth was crazy, you won’t believe what they do at the wedding. MSNBC Scoop has reported that TomKat’s wedding is going to be done in traditional Scientology fashion, where the groom is going to be addressed as the “Man” and the bride will be addressed as the “girl”. The name of the “girl” will not even be spoken, she will only be referred to as “girl” or “you” by the minister, but Tom’s full name will be declared to all who are present.

If the wedding will be a Scientology ceremony — as has been reported — any feminists in attendance might be a tad miffed. The vows for Scientology’s wedding ceremony refer to the groom only as a “man” while the bride is sometimes called a “girl,” notes the Web site, Secrets of Scientology. And some of the notions of marriage seem a bit retro.

Quoting from the book “The Background Ministry, Ceremonies & Sermons of the Scientology Religion,” the site reports that the minister asks the bride:

“And do you take
His fortune
At its prime and ebb
And seek
With him best fortune
For us all?
Do you?”

The minister then tells the groom:
“Now, (groom’s name),
girls need clothes
And food and
Tender happiness and frills
A pan, a comb, perhaps a cat
All caprice if you will
But still
They need them.
Do you then
Provide?
Do you?”

Do you, well, do you, do you?

I think Katie should take that pan she’s getting from His Fortune and whack him over the head with it. This shit is beyond misogynistic, it’s mind-control.

There’s a report that a South African woman was interested in adopting baby David Banda, and that she was coming back for him shortly and presumably intended to live in Malawi for a year and a half according to adoption regulations there. These laws help protect vulnerable babies from being snatched by rich pedophiles and fickle sensationalist pop stars. Madonna is even said to have been told that this other woman wanted to adopt Davie, but just like the fact that the boy had a father, that obviously didn’t deter her. Whatever Madonna wants, Madonna gets:

According to the administrator at the orphanage Lucy Chipeta, a South African national visited the orphanage a few months ago and expressed the desire to adopt David, whose mother died soon after delivery in September last year.

“I think David is a lucky boy,” Chipeta said at the weekend adding that Madonna was told about the matter but she insisted on taking David.

The South African was expected to visit the country again to start the adoption process. She will have to look for another orphan now that David is Madonna’s new baby pending finalisation of the adoption.

According to Chipeta, the orphanage presented to Madonna a set of orphans, some of them without both parents, but the pop diva fell for David although she was told about the impeding adoption by the South African.

David underwent an HIV test at a government hospital and was diagnosed negative. Madonna’s own medical team conducted another test and confirmed the earlier results.
“But even if he was found to be HIV positive, Madonna indicated she would still take him because all she wanted was to know his HIV status,” Chipeta said.

You can think, “Well, Madonna was there first, and who knows if this other person would have followed through with the adoption?” and that’s partially valid. When the other woman had to rearrange her entire life to adopt Davie because she needed to live in Malawi for 18 months first, is it any wonder she went home to get her affairs in order first?

Davie is reportedly doing well, and Madonna has outfitted his nursery with enough crap to make his family’s entire village self sufficient.

His father has said that he doesn’t want to take Davie back despite saying earlier that he didn’t really understand the fact that adoption is legally permanent. He also said that Madonna’s claim on Oprah that his wife and two other children died of aids is not true and is incredibly stigmatizing to his family.

Moreover, Yohane Banda says that he did visit David at the orphanage often and that his mother and brother went to see the baby too. Madonna claimed on Oprah that none of Davie’s “extended” family went to see him. It’s possible that officials told Madonna a bunch of lies about Davie’s family because they didn’t want to jeopardize her huge donation. Why would she use the word “extended” though unless she knew that the boy’s father had seen him at the orphanage?

People are saying that adoption laws need to be reformed so that other children can get a shitload of designer baby gear instead of a supported life in Africa, and maybe they have a point. The answer is not to let wealthy people donate orphanages and take home a baby in less than a month, though. There has to be some sort of compromise that protects children from predators while making sure that the people left behind get the support they so desperately need - without red strings attached.

The trolls are out in full force on these Madonna posts. If you don’t agree with me you’re welcome to give your opinion, which I respect. Most people who are on Madonna’s side explain it clearly and logically. (Thanks Elisha!) Attacking people personally for having a different opinion than you do is called an ad hominem attack and it’s the weakest argument there is. Calling someone fat instead of addressing their points is pretty unconvincing. It makes no sense.

Also, as long as something is making headlines I will cover it. (Mr. T) I do my best to listen to you and take your concerns seriously, but I have a job to do and if I ignore every story or celebrity that someone is sick of I’ll have nothing left to gossip about.

Madonna swooped into a third world country and took home a baby with a father after a couple of weeks. She managed to completely flout adoption laws by dropping a bunch of cash on a Kabbalah-themed orphanage. Who knew that would be so polarizing an issue?

Tom and Katie are said to be tying the knot in November and perhaps in Italy. There was a rumor that they were going to use George Clooney’s Lake Como villa for their wedding, but that was also rumored about Brad and Angelina’s non-wedding. Clooney’s representative has said that Tom and Katie are definitely not getting married at his estate.

Victoria Beckham looked at locations in Italy on October 7th, fueling rumors that she was helping Katie finalize wedding plans.

Georgio Armani is said to be the designer Katie Holmes has chosen to create her fantasy wedding dress. It was thought that Katie would choose a Chanel dress by Karl Lagerfeld after she was photographed with him at a Paris fashion week party, but Women’s Wear Daily is reporting that Katie has gone with Armani instead.

All of this seems rather vague, and while Katie proclaimed “I have my dress!” and Tom and Katie’s publicist has said that they’ll be married within a few weeks, I’ll believe it when I see it. These two enjoy the publicity, but need to follow through on their plans soon if people are ever going to start taking them seriously.

Meanwhile Tom Cruise parody site Scientomogy.info is standing it’s ground against a threatened lawsuit by Scientology thugs. The cult regularly uses strongarm legal tactics to slience dissent and scare anyone that dares speak out against it. They sent a cease and desist letter to site owners over a year ago claiming that it infringes on their trademark, but they’re just trying to censor negative press. YouTube has removed most of the videos linked by Scientomogy.info after undoubtedly being threatened by Scientology as well.

Here are Tom and Katie at Isabella’s soccer game on 10/14. [via]