At this point, I think John Travolta’s reputation as a happily married heterosexual male, or even as someone who engages in consensual sex, is pretty much shot. Given how many times the guy has been accused of sexually harassing male masseurs, spa-goers and various male underlings, it’s hard to find someone who considers Travolta a victim of litigious individuals. There’s only so much denying and attacking his lawyer can do, basically. So that’s why I have mixed feelings about this latest ruling, because it seems like new details about Travolta’s creeping won’t damage his brand, since it’s pretty much already shot.

This case involves a cruise ship employee who accuses Travolta of requesting a massage on board in 2009, and then accosting him for sex, basically. When the man protested, Travolta offered $12,000 for his silence, which he refused. Travolta’s lawyer tried to have the case dismissed, which failed, then he tried to argue that it should go to arbitration, as per the fine print on Travolta’s cruise ticket. The arbitration request was denied by the judge, meaning the case could go to trial.

A California federal judge has dismissed a petition by the 58-year-old actor’s lawyer to have a lawsuit filed against him by a cruise ship masseur decided in arbitration, which would have kept a lid on some pretty graphic accusations.

Travolta was sued last June for assault and battery and infliction of emotional distress by Fabian Zanzi, who accused the Get Shorty star of disrobing while the latter was giving him a neck massage and then “forcefully embracing” him during a Royal Caribbean cruise in June 2009.

After claiming Travolta engaged in contact that was “nonconsensual, inappropriate, extreme and outrageous,” the suit also charged that the thesp offered to buy Zanzi’s silence for $12,000.

Travolta subsequently denied the allegations, and his pit bull attorney, Marty Singer, pointed to a clause in the fine print of his cruise ticket to argue that the legal dispute should be settled by arbitration, which would not only allow the suit to be resolved expeditiously but also in secret.

However, per The Hollywood Reporter, in a 31-page ruling on Friday U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson smacked down that argument, noting there’s no evidence that Zanzi, as a “nonsignatory,” is bound by the arbitration agreement the A-lister entered into with Royal Caribbean.

Consequently, Zanzi’s lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, now looks to be headed for trial—unless, of course, Travolta opts to settle.

Singer was unavailable for comment, but he previously told E! News in a statement that Zanzi’s allegations were “ludicrous” and “completely contradicted” by what the employee told Royal Caribbean back in 2009 when he reported to superiors that “the only physical contact he claimed occurred was allegedly touching my client’s neck.”

[From E! Online]

So Travolta’s people want us to believe he’s entirely innocent of all these consistent allegations by different people, over time, who have no connection to each other. If he settles this case he’ll keep some of the more sordid details out of the press, but that might be tantamount to admitting guilt. I think he should settle and just have his lawyer make some lame excuse about it, as they’ve been doing all along. People think he’s guilty, and it will only remind everyone about Travolta and the mountain of evidence against him if a whole new round of stories comes out with details from the trial. Plus, this Zanzi guy could easily get corroborating witnesses to testify that Travolta did the same thing to them.

But look – Kelly is standing by him! Of course she is, her brain has been washed so many times it’s mush.

These photos are from The Annual Living Legends of Aviation Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on 1-18-13. Credit: FayesVision/WENN.com

This week’s issue of the Enquirer has a preview of Lawrence Wright’s new book, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood & the Prison of Belief, and we’ve already covered a bunch of stuff from this book about Tom Cruise and his hilariously misguided quest for the presidency, so now it’s John Travolta’s turn. John may very well be back on the CO$ wagon with bizarre claims of car-crash victim “assists”, and he also secretly longs to replace Tom as the public face of Scientology, but John wasn’t always so willing to be crushed under the alien-tentacled thumb of Xenu. In fact, Wright’s book claims that at one point — sometime in the early 1980s (the Urban Cowboy and Staying Alive era) — John was so fed up with Scientology’s intolerance of the gay lifestyle that he threatened to bolt and “marry” his male lover. Naturally, Xenu wasn’t having any of that nonsense, and since John is still with the cult, the rest is history. Here are the details:

John Travolta once threatened to turn his back on Scientology so that he could run off and marry his boyfriend.

That’s the outrageous claim made in an explosive new anti-Scientology book, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood & the Prison of Belief, by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Lawrence Wright.

In the shocking tell-all, Wright alleges that a young Travolta had grown disenchanted with the church in the early ’80s but was afraid that officials would expose him as gay if he tried to leave.

Travolta, nthen the most prominent member of Scientology, had allegedly confessed his homosexuality during church-run “auditing,” or counseling sessions, according to the book’s author. And while the author states that the church was terrified their top member would be exposed as gay — long considered to be an “illness” by Scientologists — Wright believes they were prepared to destroy the actor’s rising career by outing him if he tried to defect.

Frustrated over being trapped, in one emotionally charged auditing session, Travolta threatened to walk away from the church and “marry” his male lover even though gay marriage was not legal at the time, former Scientology official Jesse Prince told Wright.

Prince claims he was the church’s second highest-ranking official when he left it after 16 years in 1992. “Because of my position, I knew specifically what was said in certain auditing sessions, and I can confirm that John Travolta once threatened that he was going to marry his boyfriend,” Prince told The Enquirer. “There’s no question (Scientology) had a lot on John’s gay activities and used it to keep him from leaving — and to keep him in line.

In the end, says another source, the church convinced Travolta that following through on his threat would NOT be in his best interest. He remained int he organization and eventually wed fellow Scientologist Kelly Preston in 1991.

Despite marrying a woman, Travolta, 58, continues to be at the center of gay scandals. In September, his former pilot Doug Gotterba told The Enquirer that he’d shared a six-year affair with the actor. And last spring, two male masseurs filed sexual battery suits against Travolta in federal court.

Although Travolta’s attorney vehemently denied the claims, several more men have since come forward with similar allegations.

[From Enquirer, print edition, January 28, 2013]

Naturally, the entire world (well, besides Kelly Preston and the rest of the CO$) seems to readily accept that John Travolta is gay, and it’s really not such a big deal that he likes men. Not a problem at all! What is a problem is that John apparently thinks it’s okay to assault other men instead of aiming for mutual gay encounters. That’s some pretty warped thinking. We’ve heard stories of his long-term, co-pilot lover, his spa-based dalliances, and that he’s got a very long list of male lovers. Sadly though, John would rather stay in the closet and sexually assault masseuses to get his rocks off.

In a certain respect, part of me wants to feel sorry for John as well as Kelly Preston for feeling like they need to live a lie in order to keep the CO$ happy enough that their audit files won’t leak to the press. But honestly, the public is learning so much about the evils of the CO$ that they’d likely find great sympathy if such leakage ever happened. And I can’t feel sorry for people who readily remain prisoners of a cult. These two are celebrities who could get out, but they’re just too afraid to confront the truth.

Photos courtesy of John Travolta

This is so painful to witness. Last month, CB covered John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John’s campy Chrismas album cover, and like her, I still can’t believe this isn’t a joke instead of a real record that will (presumably, if anyone buys it) benefit charity. I’m not a huge Grease fan, which may be because I tried out for the part of Rizzo in my school’s 8th grade musical, and it was a total disaster audition. I remember getting through the acting part of the audition and getting called back for the singing part the next day, but my hopes were dashed when I spotted the music teacher actually cringing behind the piano during my tryout. So yeah, bad memories.

Anyway, John and Olivia are making good on their promise to ruin Christmas by releasing the new video to their “I Think You Might Like It” song. It’s just as awful as expected, and the lyrics include “making love all night,” which I really don’t need to think about in the context of Travolta. Gross.

Honestly, I don’t know what either this video has to do with Grease nostalgia except that it actually stars John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John in black t-shirts. If I was a big Grease fan, I’d be majorly pissed off after watching John crap all over Danny Zuko’s memory. John would also like to remind us that he is a licensed pilot.

I presume that this is John singing to his absent wife, Kelly Preston. You’re convinced that they’re in love, right? Because they are a happily-married Scientologist couple.

Oh wait, now Kelly Preston appears for absolutely no reason at all at … an airport? Looks more like the car-rental place next to the airport. She also dances because she’s just so happy to be married to John, I guess.

By the way, thanks to Esquire for these screencaps, which saved me a lot of suffering and might just be the nicest thing that Esquire has done in approximately three years.

Screencaps courtesy of Esquire

Here’s an amusing yet somewhat frightening story from the life of John Travolta, who not only lays on the PDA to promote his “religion” but also really wants to replace Tom Cruise as the face of Scientology. So I guess it makes sense that John has taken a page from Tom’s crazy CO$ propaganda video, in which the unhinged, lift-wearing midget laughed hysterically and claimed “When you’re a Scientologist, and you drive by an accident, you know you have to do something about it, because you know you’re the only one who can really help.” Now John has appeared within a CO$ publication for an interview that has hit the mainstream press and features John sounding like a total loon while claiming to have helped heal a car crash victim with a broken ankle. This has got to be some Mister Miyagi-grade sh-t, right? Here is the story:

John Travolta: spiritual healer?

The Savages star and Scientologist claimed he helped a car-crash survivor who was suffering from pain from a broken ankle, by using a Scientology procedure called “an assist,” according to Scientology publication Celebrity Magazine.

In the story, reported by Celebuzz, Travolta related the incident to the mag, saying, “I was in Shanghai recently at a work event and the Master of Ceremonies’ best friend had recently gotten into a car wreck. He had broken his ankle and was in constant pain. I asked him permission to do some Scientology assists and he said, ‘Okay, sure’.”

“People were standing around watching as I did them,” the Golden Globe winner continued in the article titled “John Travolta: Stayin’ Very Alive.” “You could actually see him confronting the pain and after a while he looked up at me and said, ‘I feel better,’ so I said ‘Okay, end of assist.’ He had gotten noticeably better and I was chomping at the bit for more.”

A source at the Church of Scientology Celebrity Center told E! News Travolta wasn’t claiming to have cured the crash survivor of his ailments, but that the religion’s “assists” help the body’s natural process of healing itself go at a more rapid pace.

Travolta’s rep has not yet returned requests for comment.

[From E! Online]

Honestly, I think the best part of this story is that the CO$ magazine’s article was titled, “John Travolta: Stayin’ Very Alive.” This cult is so corny like that, and they are completely shameless not only in their unabashed dorkiness but also in their claims to help heal accident victims. Then after they administer their made-up “treatments” and pass out some pamphlets for a free introductory audit and personality exam, they proceed to drain victims’ bank accounts dry. They’ve even been swarming around Hurricane Sandy victims too (I’m not linking to their sites, but you can Google it). And this is the organization for which John Travolta would love to be the public face.

Photos courtesy of WENN

Kelly Preston and John Travolta lost their son Jett, then 16, in January, 2009 when he suffered a seizure and hit his head on the bathtub in the family’s home in the Bahamas. Prior to Jett’s death, neither Kelly nor John acknowledged publicly that Jett had autism. The family of course are members of the Scientology cult, which tends to blame people for their own medical conditions along with denying that certain disorders, including autism, exist. So it’s noteworthy that they’re stating publicly that Jett had autism, where they wouldn’t acknowledge that during his life.

While her son was alive, Kelly insisted that Jett had Kawasaki syndrome, which she blamed back then on carpet chemicals Jett was exposed to as a baby. In his 2009 testimony in an extortion case in the Bahamas following Jett’s death, John Travolta stated on the record that Jett had autism and suffered seizures. It was the first time that he had done so. In a new interview on The Doctors, Kelly confirms that Jett had autism and she blamed in on “contributing factors” including chemical exposure, a “hard labor” and the antibiotics that Kelly took while breastfeeding. People Magazine has the details:

Jett Travolta – who died in 2009 after suffering a seizure and hitting his head in a bathtub at the family’s vacation home at the Old Bahama Bay Hotel on Grand Bahama Island – suffered from autism, which Preston attributes to a series of contributing factors.

“[Jett] was autistic. He had seizures and when he was very young, he had Kawasaki Syndrome,” she says on the Nov. 21 episode of The Doctors (check local listings).

“I strongly believe as a mother, as does my husband, that there are certain contributing factors that lead to autism and some of it is very much the chemicals in our environment and in our food,” she adds.

Preston, 50, says she holds a number of things responsible for Jett’s autism, specifically Kawasaki Syndrome – which usually affects children from ages 2 to 5 and can cause inflammation of the arteries – her “fast and hard” labor and the use of antibiotics while breastfeeding, which gave Jett thrush, an infection of Candida yeast which some studies have linked to the symptoms of autism.

The episode also includes a behind-the-scenes look at Alternative Laboratories to show viewers how organic products are made. Preston hopes to empower parents with information about living an organic lifestyle and being surrounded by less chemicals.

Since Jett’s passing, Preston and husband John Travolta – who are also parents to Ella, 12 – have welcomed another child, Benjamin, who is now 2-years-old.

[From People]

It is course controversial as to whether environmental factors can cause autism, whether it’s genetic, or whether it’s a combination of genetics plus environment. I don’t feel qualified or knowledgeable enough to get into that. What I do want to talk about is how Kelly sounds like she’s blaming herself for her son’s condition, which ultimately led to his death. She’s saying it’s her fault in a way, because she somehow had a hard labor or because she took antibiotics while breast feeding. I’ve never heard of those things being connected to childhood autism and many doctors say it’s safe to take antibiotics while breastfeeding. It makes me sad to hear her continue to blame herself. Many people did point fingers at the Travoltas for perhaps not treating their son’s condition to prevent seizures. The Travoltas claimed that they did medicate Jett for his condition but that anti-convulsant medication stopped working for him. Whatever happened, this poor family lost their child and it’s still very much weighing on them.

John and Kelly are shown out with their son Benjamin in Paris on 9-12-12. Credit: FameFlynet They’re shown with Jett in family photos.

CB covered a great deal of Kirstie Alley’s new media blitz the other day, wisely focusing on Kirstie’s totally delusional statements about propositioning Patrick Swayze, being turned down by Swayze, and how that somehow meant that he was in love with her. CB also mentioned Kirstie’s new interview with Barbara Walters, and how they ended up discussing John Travolta. Kirstie and John are tight – they’ve been tight for decades. They both roll with Xenu! Anyway, in the early excerpts from the interview, Kirstie said that Travolta is “the greatest love of her life” (minus Xenu) and “It took everything that I had, inside, outside, whatever, to not run off and marry John. And be with John for the rest of my life.” She was referring to the time period in and around 1991, when she was married and John wasn’t. What we hadn’t heard before now was that Barbara Walters actually asked the all-important questions about Travolta’s sexuality. I would love it if Barbara’s question was, “So, does he like c—k or what?” As you can imagine, Kirstie protected her great love’s sexuality:

Kirstie Alley wants to set the record straight about John Travolta’s sexuality.

Sitting down with Barbara Walters in an upcoming 20/20 interview, the actress, 61, dispels long-running talk that her close friend and fellow Scientologist is gay. (Married to Kelly Preston for over 20 years, the Savages actor, 58, has been exonerated in several sexual harassment cases leveled against him by male masseurs and hotel employees.)

“I know John with all my heart and soul; he’s not gay,” Alley tells Walters of her Look Who’s Talking costar.

“I think in some weird way, in Hollywood, if someone gets big enough and famous enough, and they’re not out doing drugs and they’re not womanizing, what do you say about them?” she mused.

Indeed, Alley reveals to Walters that she had to fight her own romantic feelings for Travolta while she was still married to Parker Stevenson; she and the actor divorced in 1997 after 14 years together.

Calling Travolta the “greatest love of my life,” Alley claims “it took everything I had inside, outside, whatever, to not run off and marry John and be with John for the rest of my life . . .I feel like when you marry someone, you’re supposed to work hard at it and you’re supposed to make it work.”

These details follow another forbidden love scenario that came out earlier this week: Back in 1985, Alley fell for another costar, the late Patrick Swayze, as they filmed the TV movie North and South.

“Both of us were married,” Alley says, clarifying that the pair did not technically “have an affair,” but indeed fell in love.

“But again, I think what we did was worse,” she explains of Swayze, who was married to wife Lisa Niemi up until his 2009 death. “Because I think when you fall in love with someone when you’re married, you jeopardize your own marriage and their marriage. It’s doubly bad.”

[From Us Weekly]

I was going to joke about it, but really, Kirstie didn’t leave a lot of room in there to parse. It’s just a flat-out denial wrapped in a personal testimonial. She’s saying she knows his heterosexual soul on a cosmic level and we only call him gay because he’s super-famous and super-clean. Clean except for all of the masseurs he quietly bones. ALLEGEDLY!

But really, I think we should heavily discount everything Kirstie says about the 1980s and early 1990s because, as it turns out, she was a raging cokehead who was always on the verge of overdosing. But she’s totally fine now, people. Because Xenu healed her.

Kirstie Alley has opened up about her past cocaine habit that was so intense she feared it would kill her. Alley, who is promoting her new book The Art of Men (I Prefer Mine al Dente), admitted that she did “enough cocaine to kill several people.”

The 61-year-old says: “I thought I was going to overdose almost every time… There was about a year’s span that I did cocaine that I was doing it – you could say – more occasionally, on the weekend. Then my weekend became a three-day weekend, then it became four, then it became five.

“But I would do so much at a time that I would snort the coke and then I would sit there, I would take my pulse [thinking]: ‘I’m dying, I’m dying, I’m dying.’ Who would keep doing it? But it’s such a weird, mind-trippy addiction.”

Alley credits the controversial religion Scientology with saving her from the grips of addiction.

She says: “A friend of mine sent me this book. Most of my friends were drug addicts so they didn’t send me books. But one of my friends who wasn’t, was a Scientologist and she sent me Dianetics [by L. Ron Hubbard]. Somehow I got through it and I thought: ‘This is either the world’s biggest scam or this is how I’m going to get rid of this hideous compulsion that I have.’”

[From Radar]

‘This is either the world’s biggest scam or this is how I’m going to get rid of this hideous compulsion that I have’. OR BOTH. It’s not an either/or proposition. You too can quit drugs when you’re chained up in David Miscavige’s work-camp yacht AND it can still be the world’s biggest scam.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet and WENN.

When I first saw the CD cover for John Travolta and Olivia Newton John’s new Christmas album, I thought it was a gag that someone had ‘shopped up from a photo of a Grease reunion brunch. It just looks so ridiculous and campy, which is generally how Travolta looks in posed photos, but it still seemed fake to me. It’s not, it’s real, and Danny and Sandy are marketing it to the Boomers of their generation and the Gen Xers like me who used to watch Grease on a loop on HBO. I just wanted to BE Sandy, and to have her hair, swagger and accent. I never really wanted Danny as a boyfriend, though. He was way too much of a meathead for me. And now we know the reality. It’s all Ronco spray-on hair, illicit massages and tea parties. John and Olivia are totally serious about this, and they’re donating the profits to charity too.

Grease stars John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John are going to make some beautiful music together.

This time it’s for a Christmas album, and they plan to include 13 guest stars. Among them: Barbra Streisand, Tony Bennett, James Taylor, Chick Corea and Kenny G.

The idea for the collection came from Travolta after he received a holiday season text from Newton-John noting that their 1978 smash, You’re the One That I Want, had just become the best-selling duet in pop music history. “From the moment we decided to do this, magic happened,” says Travolta. “Everyone we contacted agreed to do it.”

Adds Newton-John in the release, “With our busy schedules, I don’t know how we got it done. John and I have always connected. That’s never gone away. When we’re together, we have a good laugh and feel bonded to one another. We’ve been through some amazing experiences together.”

In addition to stars singing more classic seasonal fare, one of the highlights of the album is the one original song, I Think You Might Like It, a sequel to the Grease smash You’re the One That I Want. It’s a new tune by that song’s writer/producer John Farrar.

“My desire was to make This Christmas an intimate album, not something too ostentatious or showy,” says Travolta. “I wanted people to be able to play it around the house or in the car during the holidays, and make us part of your celebration.”

Travolta and Newton-John will donate the artist proceeds from the album equally to the Jett Travolta Foundation, to combat children’s disabilities, including autism and seizures, and the Olivia Newton-John Cancer and Wellness Centre in Melbourne, Australia.

This Christmas will be available Nov. 13 from Universal Music Enterprises.

[From USA Today]

I’ll say something nice, and then I’ll balance it out with something bitchy, as I’m wont to do. It’s cool that these two have remained friends, and it must be fun for them to get together after all these years. They probably don’t even have any sexual tension either. *smirk* It’s great that they’re donating profits to their own charities too. On the other hand, The Jett Travolta foundation has been criticized for being relatively small and inactive, although that may change, and Travolta’s deep ties to Scientology make any of his charitable endeavors suspect. (Plus he must have a lot of lawyers bills and settlements to pay. We haven’t heard much about that lately.)

Also, do we need more Christmas albums? I usually listen to the same Bing Crosby, Dean Martin and Ella Fitzgerald holiday CDs around Christmastime. (For about a couple of days really, not much more.) No one does the classics like they do. We don’t need more remakes and there’s only one original song on this album. This is all about a Danny and Sandy reunion, and we’re not buying it! Does anyone else have “You’re the One That I Want” stuck in their head now?

John and Olivia in 2011:

In 2010:

Classic:

Photo credit: WENN.com

These are photos of Salma Hayek and John Travolta in France, where they were doing some kind of photocall for Savages, the Oliver Stone film. I was going to talk about Salma Hayek and her unflattering dress, but I can’t find the designer ID, and the dress really isn’t that exciting, good or bad. It’s just kind of dull and poofy and someone with her amazing figure should be able to find better clothes with ease, so it’s a shame.

But I really want to discuss John Travolta’s wiglet situation. It’s getting worse, right? Granted, I think this is the same wiglet he was wearing in New York when he promoted Savages – this must be his offical “I worked with Oliver Stone” Wiglet. So even though I’ve seen it before, it never stops being amazing. It never stops being hilarious. I can’t even imagine what it’s like to be John Travolta, with all of those secrets and hidden psychological compartments, so many desires and urges to keep tamped down. And in the end, people are just looking at his wiglet in bewilderment. Carrie Fisher once said about John, “My feeling about John has always been that we know and we don’t care. Look, I’m sorry that he’s uncomfortable with it, and that’s all I can say.” She said that about his sexuality. But should could have also been discussing his hair situation.

Photos courtesy of WENN, Fame/Flynet.

CB and I were looking through these photos yesterday, and we couldn’t stop laughing. John Travolta and Kelly Preston – who, to their credit, are total pros – stopped and posed for the paparazzi while they were having lunch in Paris. The obvious place to go is “Heterosexual John Travolta and his loving wife and soulmate Kelly looked lovely and sexually engaged with each other in Paris.” But then we would be ignoring the fact that JT looks like a Village Person, and that NO MAN past a certain age should be wearing a nip-tweaking baby-t and trilby. We would also be ignoring the theory that CB and I now have that Kelly bought herself some new boobs:

Right? Look at her chest – they haven’t been that big since she was pregnant with Benjamin. Is she pregnant again (by her completely heterosexual husband) just in time to battle all of John Travolta’s (ALLEGED!) boyfriends and groping victims, who seem to be coming out of the woodwork every month? Or did Kelly just buy herself some new boobs just because, why not?

Also: I know I just called Travolta a Village Person, but you know who else he reminds me of? Justin Theroux. RIGHT?! LMAO.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.

A lot of you bashed Rashida Jones yesterday when she discussed John Travolta’s sexuality in an interview while promoting her latest film. Rashida and her ex, Will McCormack, were discussing homosexuality and Hollywood, and how more people need to come out of the closet. Rashida name-checked Travolta, saying: “And a movie star! It’s time…Like John Travolta? Come out! Come on. How many masseurs have to come forward? Let’s do this.” Well, Rashida is sorry she said it. She tweeted her apology, and I’m including some of her followers’ responses just because I think it’s funny:

[Via Rashida’s Twitter]

I love “gurl, you just said what everyone already knows.” Because TRUTH. Do I think Rashida needed to apologize for what she said? Not really. She wasn’t trying to “out” someone who simply keeps a low profile, someone who isn’t hurting anyone. Rashida was – as I said in the original post – simply gossiping about a major gossip story this summer, much in the way all of us are just gossiping. Plus, John Travolta is being accused of sexually assaulting masseurs – this isn’t just a case of “Oh, it’s his bidness.” Travolta’s bidness is groping unwilling participants. But whatever… Rashida just apologized on Twitter, of all things. It’s not like she issued an apology to People Magazine or anything.

Photos courtesy of WENN.