We all thought Tom would never let her out of her cage – but somehow Katie Holmes has managed to escape long enough to actually do something to salvage her career. Holmesbot will be playing the role of Ann Deever in Arthur Miller’s play All My Sons. Which means she’ll be heading to the Big Apple – presumably with Tom in tow. It has been widely reported that Katie wanted to go to New York as a sort of trial separation from Tom. Not surprisingly, he put the kibosh on that pretty quickly.

Discussions to bring the actress to Broadway were confirmed back in March, and now a deal seems inevitable. Producer Eric Falkenstein tells OK! he thinks Katie is perfect for the part. “Katie is very well suited for the role of Ann,” he says. “There is an additional layer of soul to Ann and from the work I’ve seen of Katie, she has always impressed with multi-faceted characters. She would nail it.”

Falkenstein also feels that Mrs. Cruise’s star-power won’t overshadow her acting ability. “Despite being in the spotlight and her celebrity status, the fact remains that she has a tremendous record of performances,” he says. “I think Katie is a tremendous actor. Whenever she decides to come to the stage she’ll be terrific.”

All My Sons will hit Broadway with a preview in September and open a month later in October. A formal announcement is expected to take place within the next 10 days.

[From OK! Magazine]

Notice how nice OK was to sidestep the whole Tom issue? Will Tom let Katie off her leash? Will he reprogram her circuits? Will Katie cut the cord? What other ridiculous metaphors can we use to imply that Tom Cruise is a controlling nut bag?

It would really be fabulous if Katie got a little time away from the Scientology influence. But with all the minders Tom keeps around, that seems highly unlikely. If nothing else, it’ll be interesting to see if she can pull off the role. I’ve always found her acting rather drab at best. And since Tom’s groomed her, she speaks with this ridiculous faux-softness that I just can’t stand. I’m not sure how that will transfer to the stage. Nonetheless: spread your wings Katie! Break out of the cage! Fly away! Okay I really am done with the metaphors now. Just leave the guy.

Here’s Katie and Tom at the Fashion and Fantasy’ Costume Institute Gala on May 5th. Images thanks to WENN.

Katie Holmes and Victoria Beckham in Paris. October, 2006

Victoria Beckham sure is having a bad day today. Nobody wants her. According to the Daily Mail, Tom Cruise has had just about enough of Posh and her bad influence on wifebot Katie Holmes. He seems to feel that Katie and Posh have morphed into the same person, who I like to call Kosh. Apparently the weight Katie has lost recently isn’t due to Tom refusing to feed her anything but barely water and vitamins. Instead it’s due to Victoria’s bad influence, and he wants to put a stop to their friendship. And as a little more salt in the wound, Fred Segal and Kitson have dumped Posh’s denim line. Everyone’s dumping poor Vicky.

Victoria Beckham’s new best friends may be Hollywood’s biggest stars – but Tom Cruise is concerned that the Spice Girl is rubbing off on his wife just a bit too much. According to my spies in LA, the actor is keen to put some distance between his actress wife Katie Holmes and Victoria, who have morphed into each other.

“Katie sees Victoria as a role model,” says my mole. “She copies Victoria’s look and even cut her hair the same way. But it concerns Tom that Katie has lost so much weight recently. She is very thin largely because she is following Victoria’s strict 900-calories-a-day eating plan. She is copying Victoria’s fad of eating seaweed shakes, frozen grapes and edamame beans. She is tiny.”

[From the Daily Mail]

Every so often you hear a story about Victoria giving someone a piece of her mind. It always comes as a surprise since you never really hear her say anything publicly. I always assumed she lacked a voice box. But something tells me Tom’s concern over Posh’s influence in Katie’s life may also have to do with the fact that she’s openly stated she’s not falling for Scientology. And we all know Tom has to control everything and everyone. It seems likely that Posh isn’t the drone Tom requires in a person, and that’s the real problem. Not that I’m supporting a 900 calorie a day lifestyle. But something tells me the problem has less to do with frozen grapes and more to do with Tom’s paralyzing fear of his wifebot being deprogrammed.

Katie Holmes and Victoria Beckham in Paris. October, 2006
It’s been a while since Katie Holmes and Victoria Beckham have been seen out together spending their husbands’ money on overpriced clothing they’ll wear for a fraction of a day. Star offers a potential explanation for their maybe-rift in the form of “insider information” that’s likely to be completely fabricated, but is too good to pass up. Katie is said to have called tattoos “trashy,” and since Victoria Beckham enjoys decorating her twig-like limbs with permanent ink, she is said to have found that comment particularly insulting:

It’s arctic between Katie Holmes and her fashion mentor, Victoria “Posh Spice” Beckham, and a source tells Star that it’s all because of a tattoo! Thrilled with her latest tat [on the inside of her wrist] of the Latin phrase “De Integro” - it means “afresh” - Posh urged BFF Katie to get inked herself. Posh, who got this fifth one to mark her new start in the U.S., “was pretty shocked and upset” when the Mad Money actress called such body art trashy, says the source.

[From Star Magazine, print edition, March 10, 2008]

You can see Katie Holmes saying this. She dresses and acts like an old lady, it’s not a stretch to claim she thinks like one too. (Although people of all ages think tattoos are trashy.)

Katie and Victoria famously attended Paris Fashion Week together in October, 2006, and spent time in Paris again in January, 2007. Apart from some get-togethers with their husbands they haven’t spent a lot of time together since. The last we heard of the Cruises and Beckhams together was in early December, 2006 2007 when Tom and Katie took Suri to a Spice Girls concert. Maybe they just aren’t best buddies. Or maybe Katie did insult Victoria - by copping her look and then calling her former good friend’s body art “trashy.”

According to Mike Walker in the National Enquirer, who isn’t the most reliable source but manages to come up with zingers about the celebrities every week (which would probably be impossible if all of it was true), Rosie O’Donnell pissed off pint-sized Tom Cruise by telling him that she read the very unflattering biography of him recently put out by Andrew Morton. The story is that when Rosie ran into Cruise at Madonna’s Kabbalah fundraiser, she blurted out that she had read the book but didn’t believe any of it. Tom got pissed that she had even read it and had the tenacity to tell him about it, and stormed off:

Rosie O’Donnell… rushed up to her idol Tom Cruise, planted a wet kiss… and instantly stuck a foot in her big, fat mouth! Babbling about Brit muckraker Andrew Morton’s controversial new Cruise bio, Rosie barked: “I bought that book, but don’t worry, Tommy - I don’t believe a word in it!” Stunned and speechless, the InterGalactic Lord of Cruise Control finally gasped: “You actually went out and paid money for that book? I can’t believe you’d buy that book - and then actually read it!” Sputtered Rosie: “I - I had to read it… so I could give my opinion if I was asked about it.”

My spywitness says Tom lashed back: “No one cares about your opinion. I don’t care about your opinion!” He grabbed wife Katie Holmes’ arm and stormed off, leaving Rosie red-faced [and] humiliated.

[From The National Enquirer, print edition, Mike Walker’s column, March 3, 2008]

Sounds like someone is pretty touchy about that book if this story is true. In this photo that came out of Rosie posing with Madonna, Lourdes, Tom and Katie, Rosie is off to the side but everyone looks perfectly happy. Rosie blogged after the event that:

my tommy was there
handsome as ever
he makes me smile
i love that guy

[Rosie’s blog via Just Jared]

You would think that Tom would handle that better, but maybe not. As it is, this story sounds fake and there’s not much evidence for it, but it’s juicy enough that we couldn’t resist reporting it.

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are shown in the header image at the First Annual Essence Black Women In Hollywood event on 2/21/08, thanks to Splash News. They must’ve been working the crowd for Xenu. I really don’t like Katie’s hair like that. She’s one of the only celebrities who works the helmet hair, so she should embrace that and not mess with it like that. Those curls don’t suit her. She used to look so young with long hair.

Katie Holmes and her helmet hair made an appearance at the Costume Designers Guild Awards on Tuesday night. She presented the “Swarovski President’s Award” to her husband’s partner, Paula Wagner. Wagner is the CEO of United Artists and Cruise is a producer and actor for the studio. We were wondering if Katie just slouchy when she appeared at the premiere of her flop Mad Money looking like she either was in the beginning stages of pregnancy or had bad posture. She stood up straight for her solo appearance last night and had a perfectly flat stomach.

The Daily Mail said that Katie has “spearheaded a return to old Hollywood glamour,” but a commentor retorted that “I don’t recall the old dames of Hollywood a) looking like a skeleton on tranquillizers, or b) showing off their girdle underneath the dress.”

It is a lovely dress, though. I love the rhinestone detail on the front and the cut is gorgeous. It’s easier to focus on Katie’s fashion when Tom isn’t around. I still don’t like her. She stepped into her Stepford wife role a little too well. You have to give her credit for it though, she really knows what she’s doing.

That reminds me - one of the Scientology cults most vocal critics has just “committed suicide”. Not that it has anything to do with Katie Holmes and her charmed life.

Word on the street is that Katie Holmesbot might actually be rebelling a bit against her keeper. By street, I mean internet superhighway. Does anyone call it that anymore? Well let’s pretend so. And by keeper, I mean husband Tom Cruise. “Mad Money,” Katie’s first movie since Tom jumped into her life – isn’t doing so well at the box office. Or with the critics. Basically, it royally sucks. I’m not sure how a film with the sensible casting of Queen Latifah, Diane Keaton, and Katie Holmes could possibly go wrong. Oh yeah, make it a girly-bonding bank caper. Because nothing gets women to the theater in droves like a good heist.

Apparently Katie’s a little pissed at Tom – who encouraged her to do “Mad Money.” I think even the most desperate, starting-out-in-the-world-young-actress would be pretty mad if they were stuck in this film. You’d think with Tom running a movie studio… and being Tom Cruise… he would have given her better advice. Or at least bribed someone else into putting her into a better film. Between the “Mad Money” embarrassment and Tom amping up the crazy Scientology rantings – via video, no less – Katie’s supposedly reaching her boiling point.

A distraught Katie Holmes has stormed out of a crisis meeting with her husband Tom Cruise, furious over damaging publicity about his Scientology beliefs, and humiliated over the disastrous reaction to the movie he told her to make.

The actress is said to be inconsolable after a string of leaked Scientology videos, featuring her husband saluting a portrait of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, declaring war on psychiatry and claiming that members of his religion are “the only ones who can really help” accident victims, have flooded the Internet and divided Hollywood.

“Oh, I’m going hard on those guys and their reign … psychiatrists,” says Tom in one disturbing video. “It’s disgusting to me. No mercy … none. Psychiatry doesn’t work… When you study the effects, it’s a crime against humanity.” … after this new scandal she can no longer ignore the Hollywood backlash.

[From Woman’s Day]

To be fair, Katie really shouldn’t have been ignoring the “Hollywood backlash” for a long time. The backlash is there because your husband is cray-to-the-z. I really doubt Katie Holmes finds Tom’s mental health issues adorable. I’m guessing at first she thought he was a little intense, but relatively charming and still Tom Cruise. Then the next thing she knows there’s a ton of press and hoopla and everyone who was close to forgetting about the girl from “Dawson’s Creek” suddenly remembered her again, and that was pretty enticing. So what if your husband ruins all the furniture jumping around like an under-medicated eight-year-old? You’ve got the money to replace the cushions. But when your A-list husband tells you to do a B-movie, that’s where you draw the line. I think “Mad Money” pretty much confirmed that Katie has completely sacrificed her career to be with Tom. Next goes the sanity. In other news, it sounds like Katie might be pregnant. This past weekend she bought a t-shirt that says “Big Sister” (ostensibly) for Suri, along with two matching onsies which said “Little Sister” and “Little Brother.” Let’s hope they’re for Nicole Kidman.

Picture note by Jaybird: Awesome image below thanks to NachoBaby. Katie and Tom are shown in the header image at the Mad Money premiere on 1/9/08.

There’s a lot of circumstantial evidence that suggests that Suri Cruise might not have been born on April 18, 2006 as claimed. First, her birth certificate wasn’t signed by anyone who actually saw Katie or Suri in the hospital and wasn’t issued for a full 20 days after her birth date. It took a full five months for anyone to catch a glimpse of little Suri, when she made her big debut in the October, 2006 issue of Vanity Fair. That seemed extremely suspicious back then, but Britney managed to hide Jayden James for a longer period of time so it’s not necessarily a red flag. The Scientologists also have this thing where babies can’t be exposed to negative influences or something, so that was also cited as a potential reason to have kept Suri under wraps for so long.

A lot of people speculated that Suri wasn’t born in April at all, and cited photos of Katie’s Holmes growing and shrinking bump to show that there was some funny business going on. One photo in particular that made us scratch our heads had Katie looking like she was smuggling a beach ball under her top. There are theories that Suri isn’t Tom Cruise’s biological baby and that Katie was instead pregnant with her ex Chris Klein’s child when she met Tom just a month after her breakup with Chris. Cruise was rumored to be sterile or at least unable to successfully reproduce, given the fact that he had no biological children with ex wife Nicole Kidman and she suffered some miscarriages during their marriage. The curious way that Suri was kept from the public and the lack of convincing evidence of her birthdate were used as evidence that she could be older than Holmes and Cruise claimed, which made her paternity up to question.

Now there’s some hearsay to add to the rumor that Suri is Chris Klein’s and not Tom’s baby. The National Enquirer has a source this week that claims to have had a conversation with Chris that suggested that Katie was pregnant when they broke up back in March of 2005. Their source also passed a lie detector test, but that’s possible with the help of some medication so you can’t put much faith in that. The Enquirer never says outright that Suri must be Chris’ baby, but they sure hint strongly at it:

“Mad Money” star Katie, 29, and Chris, 27, started dating in January 2000. They got engaged at Christmas 2003, but Chris has said they split in March 2005 because they fell out of love.

A month after the breakup, Katie flew to Los Angeles from New York to meet Tom. Two months after that - on June 17, 2005 - Tom announced Katie had accepted his wedding proposal.

But even before their engagement was made public, Chris told the source that he had impregnated Katie, says the pal. “Shortly after his relationship with Katie ended, Chris and I had a heart-to-heart,” the source - who passed a polygraph test - told The Enquirer.

“We were having dinner at Cafeteria, a restaurant in NY’s Chelsea district, when Chris blurted out ‘Dude, you know I got Katie preggers.’

“There was a long silence. I realized Chris had said more than he intended. My next thought was: What happened to the baby?”

Chris never said - and the source says he didn’t ask.

“From the look in Chris’ eyes, I realized this was highly personal. I didn’t want to probe any further. We quickly went on to another topic,” the source said.

“Chris never brought it up again, but I know he must be reminded of Katie’s pregnancy every time he sees her daughter Suri.”

[From The National Enquirer, print edition, February 4, 2008]

I really don’t believe that Katie Holmes ran the full NY Marathon or even walked it, but it feels kind of wrong to speculate whether Suri is Tom’s biological child or not. A lot of signs point to “no,” but this is a little girl who is being raised by a batshit crazy, but still completely attentive loving father who is doing his best to ensure that she’s indoctrinated in the manner he’s accustomed to. All we have at this point is some circumstantial evidence and the word of a person who may not even be real. Even if some friend of Klein’s heard him say this, it doesn’t mean that Suri is Kleins. Katie could have had a miscarriage or maybe she thought she was pregnant and really wasn’t. Maybe it doesn’t matter if Tom is Suri’s biological dad or not. Heath’s death helped me grow a conscience this week, although I’m sure by next week I’ll be back to normal.

Thanks to Splash News for these photos and Pink is The New Blog for the composite image.

Katie Holmes has an upcoming interview in Parade Magazine in which she reveals that Tom’s children from his marriage with Nicole Kidman, Isabella and Connor, call her “mom.” She also said that she and Tom and both of their families will be celebrating Christmas in Telluride, Colorado, where they’ll ski and cook holiday favorites like pecan pie.

How will you and Tom celebrate?
KH: My whole family and Tom’s whole family will go up to Telluride [Colo.] again. We ski. We have big dinners and laugh. We love cooking. My mom’s stuffing is my favorite. I’m a huge fan of pie, especially pecan. I will probably cook some garlic mashed potatoes and maybe a cheesecake. We always make a lot of sugar cookies with decorating and sprinkles. Suri will be in the dough everywhere. Tom has shown me the greatness of extra chocolate chips. Tom’s really good in the kitchen. He makes great pasta carbonara and lemon pasta.

With all that, how do you both keep fit?
KH: We ski a lot. And we’ll get back to normal eating in January, like everyone else.

Did you have fun shooting “Mad Money”?
KH: It was a blast. We got our morning female talk in the trailer every day.

Does Tom get the way women talk together?
KH: My husband has three sisters. He was raised by a single mother and has two daughters–and he’s a great father and husband. His first two children are incredible, really smart and kind. They call me “Mom.” So Tom understands the female bond, and he loves it. He was so excited for me to do this movie. He loved hearing all the stories.

[From Parade Magazine as found on Huffington Post]

As for her life with Tom she still has some of that wide-eyed glassy wonder that characterized their early relationship, but she’s graduated from calling everything “amazing” to describing her life with other superlatives.

On how she copes with being married to one of the most high profile cult spokespeople in the planet, she said that all the adventure, high end shopping and jet setting keep her one step ahead of insanity. That and a healthy dose of denial:

Everyone asks, “What’s Katie really like now?” How would you answer that?
KH: With everything that’s happened, I still feel the same. I’m really happy being a mom, being a wife. I understand the curiosity. It’s a reality for me, another dimension of awareness. I appreciate the man that I’m with and my family and my work. I feel very lucky to be able to say that. I mean, what we do in a week is extraordinary.

Did you expect such a busy and public life?
KH: I am up for it. I love adventure. We do a lot of things that I couldn’t imagine doing when I was younger. And yet, at the same time, I always wanted to see the world. It is a big life, and it’s exciting. I learn from my husband, and I learn things about myself. I learn about things from my daughter. She teaches me a lot. Every day I do count my blessings.

[From Parade Magazine as found on Huffington Post]

Isn’t it odd the way Katie phrases things? Who says things like “every day I do count my blessings”? She sounds like a school teacher from the 1950s. It is nice that she appreciates her life and isn’t smug about all the opportunities she has.

She also told a cute story about how little Suri said “Good Morning Berlin” when she was in Germany with Tom. (The story about Suri getting fitted for a custom pair of baby Louboutin high end shoes that we reported a couple of weeks ago was unfortunately false. In Touch reported this week that they contacted the Louboutin company, who denied the report.)

You could say that Nicole Kidman might be hurt by the news that her two kids call their stepmom “mom,” but that seems common with blended families and she’s probably more hurt by the fact that she rarely gets to see her children. She lost those kids to Scientology years ago and seems resigned to her fate.

There was a lot of speculation that Katie Holmes was pregnant after she was seen out with what looked like an obvious lower belly baby bump, but in these latest pictures it’s hard to tell as she’s wearing a loose coat.

Tom and Katie are shown outside The Raffles L’Ermitage Hotel In Beverly Hills yesterday, after which they headed to the Celebrity Scientology Center. Thanks to Splash News for these pics.

Update: Thanks to commentor Kolby and an anonymous commentor for mentioning that the kids call Nicole by her first name according to a recent interview. That’s not exactly true, though. Nicole Kidman said that Connor and Isabella call her “Mum” not “Mummy” (I assume this is translated to British vernacular) and that they sometimes call her Nicole. This isn’t exactly the same thing as not calling her “mom” and reserving the title only for Katie:

“Golden Compass” star Nicole Kidman appeared on Great Britain’s GMTV to promote the film, in which she plans the evil Marisa Coulter. After saying she read the books to her kids, she had this exchange with the host:

Host: Did your kids sit there and think, hey mummy, Mrs. Coulter, that’s you?
Nicole: They don’t call me mummy.
Host: What do they call you?
Nicole: Mum. Or sometimes Nicole. I’m like, “Hey!”

[GMTV interview as published in The Huffington Post]

This week’s Star Magazine has Katie Holmes jealous over a supposed on-set ongoing flirtation Tom had with a pretty German brunette extra in Berlin, but OK! Magazine features a fawning piece that focuses on the elaborate meal Katie planned for Valentine’s day. Star claims they’re having trouble at the eve of their upcoming anniversary, while OK! says they’re supportive of each other and take time to communicate and that everything is all so rosy.

Neither article has much substance. Star says that along with being pissed off at the attention Tom is showing some unnamed extra, Katie “may feel threatened by his leading lady, Carice Van Houten, 31,” since “the chemistry is obvious” when they work together. Supposedly Tom talks too much about how beautiful and what a great actress Clarice is, but I think Star is inventing stuff to be able to put Tom and Katie on the cover. At least OK! has some details to back up their claims that sound like they’re actually true.

OK! offers a few examples of why all the happy marriage cliché’s apply. Among the inset features in the article are two different stories about how the Scientology cult goes out of their way to ensure that Tom and Katie are treated like royalty, comping them expensive vacations and creating an entire luxury apartment for them in Beverly Hills while they wait for renovations to be completed on their home. The amount of trouble and expense the cult goes through to ensure their highest profile members are happy is outrageous:

After plunking down $35 million for the perfect Beverly Hills love nest, Tom immediately began renovating the home. The work wasn’t done by the time the lease on their current house expired in September, so a friend of Tom tells OK!, “The had the old house completely packed and put into storage.” Technically, the Cruises were homeless in Beverly Hills - until the Scientology Celebrity Centre International stepped in…

After knocking down walls and doing a round-the-clock overhaul of some space on the building’s sixth and seventh floors, a luxurious duplex apartment was created for the Cruises to use whenever they need. Their temporary home has a living room with a terrace, a dining room, a full kitchen, separate offices for Tom and Katie and a fully equipped gym. The master bedroom, which has its own private terrace, has an adjoining nursery for Suri. There are two additional bedrooms for Connor and Isabella.

[From OK! Magazine, print edition, November 12, 2007]

One of those other bedrooms is probably for Katie, because she and Tom don’t sleep in the same room according to many accounts.

And in case a fully decked out completely free apartment in Beverly Hills isn’t enough to keep the Cruise’s smiling and advocating the cult, they were also on vacation in Florida recently at Scientology’s expense. OK! says that they went missing for a few days and that’s where they were, not that we noticed:

When Tom celebrated his 45th birthday on July 3, the whole world awaited photos of the family together, but to no avail. OK! has learned that the couple, along with Connor, Isabella and little Suri, snuck away to Clearwater, Florida, where they stayed at the Scientology Center complex (Clearwater is the worldwide headquarters for Scientology) for two days.

[From OK! Magazine, print edition, November 12, 2007]

Of course Tom’s entire family came along, and supposedly Katie chartered a yacht, but I’m guessing the Scientology people had more to do with that.

Plus the head of Scientology, the guy that was rumored to have joined them on their honeymoon (a story that Tom’s rep denies) was also there.

They were joined by Tom’s mother, Mary Lee, his sisters Cass, Marian and Lee Anne, and Tom’s best friend David Miscavige, who is the head of Scientology.

“Katie arranged for the charter of a fabulous yacht,” a friend of Tom tells OK!. “It was a gorgeous day and they sailed around the Clearwater Harbor for a while and then anchored on a private barrier island. Everything had been set up for just off the sand for a sunset dinner…”

Katie’s birthday gift to Tom, however, was a little too large to be presented to him on the island. “She gave him a custom-designed motorcycle.”

[From OK! Magazine, print edition, November 12, 2007]

So they went on a yacht, undoubtedly owned by the Scientology cult, to a Scientology island and had a dinner set out for them by workers at the Scientology headquarters.

Tom chose to spend his birthday being catered to by the cult he has a symbiotic relationship with, and Katie came along for the ride.

While celebrities like Tom Cruise, John Travolta, and Kirstie Alley are given everything for free and treated like five star resort guests by Scientology, average people involved with the cult are forced to fork over their life savings, with many working as slave laborers in “reducation” camps for Sea Org.

Here are Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes at the 23rd Annual Museum Of The Moving Image Black Tie Salute Honoring Tom Cruise in NY last night. I wonder where they stayed and if that was comped by Scientology too. Thanks to PR Photos for these pictures.

Oh to be a spoiled little Scientologist! Suri Cruise sounds like she’s got it made – at least for now. According to Us Weekly, the tot almost never hears the word “no.” In Scientology, it’s considered better to explain why actions are wrong. I can’t argue with that – but I think a “no” now and then might be useful, like “No! Don’t lay down in the train tracks!” It might be a little quicker than explaining what the force and weight of a train can do to a body. But that’s just me, and I’m close-minded like that. This article makes it sound like Suri is spoiled, so it’s hard to tell if it’s due to Scientology or overly-doting parents.

“Everyone knows that Suri Cruise, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ adorable little daughter, leads a charmed existence but her upbringing as a Scientologist remains largely a mystery. How does the religion started by L. Ron Hubbard influence Suri’s life on a daily basis? Us Weekly has learned that while Suri — who as a baby was breastfed and nursed on a mixture of barley water, milk and corn syrup which Hubbard advocated as being healthier than formula and breast milk — is too young to take classes at the Scientology Centre, the 18-month-old is constantly surrounded by believers, including her two nannies.

“‘Tom doesn’t like associating with people who aren’t Scientologists,’ says an insider. Additionally, Holmes, 29, and Cruise, 45, have a hard time saying no to Suri. But it’s not simply because they’re pushovers. ‘It’s all about being positive and supportive,’ says the couple’s friend (Hubbard advised parents to ‘try to be the child’s friend.’) As for discipline, one former church member tells Us that Scientologists do not scold their children, but instead explain that bad behavior (like throwing a toy) is the ‘wrong action.’ (A Scientology rep tells Us, ‘How a parent disciplines their child is left up to the parent.’)

“Cruise and Holmes, says their pal, are very lenient and do not like to give Suri too many rules: ‘Suri pretty much does whatever she wants, whenever she wants. If she fusses before bed, they let her stay up later. If they want her to go swimming and she cries, they’ll take her out. If she whines about food, they’ll ask her what else she wants to eat. They always want to please her.’”

[From Us Weekly]

Ooooohhh, Tom and Katie are such bad parents. They want to make their kid happy! I’m kidding, that’s a pretty natural inclination. On the one hand you want to be firm, and on the other you want your kid to like you. I can’t help but wonder if L Ron Hubbard would have the same ideas about parents being their children’s friend if he’d seen the way Lindsay Lohan turned out. Yeah, when your parent/friend snorts coke with you, you may have blurred the lines a bit.

What are some other scientology pearls of wisdom regarding child rearing? Here’s a recap of what Celebitchy wrote a year ago:

“In yet another disturbing chapter of the TomKat saga, Mike Wallace of the National Enquirer reports that Scientologists plan to commandeer Katie’s baby for three days after its birth. What’s more, the baby will be isolated for a day after it’s born. Despite reports that she’s spending 8 hours a day being indoctrinated into Scientology, Katie has come to her senses and is questioning this counter-intuitive practice:

“furious KATIE HOLMES warned fiancé/daddy-to-be TOM CRUISE that she’ll absolutely refuse to allow Scientologists to commandeer her newborn at birth for what their church calls “Processing a New Mother” - a bizarre ritual which involves separating mother and child for three days, allowing only minimal contact! As her time approaches, sources say, Katie’s becoming hysterical over the idea that her baby will be controlled by the sect’s handlers from the moment he/she enters the world. In a raging confrontation, Katie told Tom she flatly rejects Scientology’s edict that newborns should be left totally alone for the entire first day after birth.

“Any human who’s not brainwashed would agree that it’s harmful and cruel to leave a newborn baby alone at any time, especially on its first day in the world. It’s also quite difficult, if not impossible, to breastfeed if you don’t start up within the first three days after birth. This is wrong for so many reasons.”

Want to know some other freaky stuff? If you’re a Scientologist and your kid trips over the root of a tree and hurts himself, you’re supposed to take the kid back to the tree and press the root against the injury, and give the pain back to the root. True story.

“Parents are encouraged not to comfort or nurture young children because Hubbard believed children are small adults, able to think and fend for themselves from a very early age. For example, a child who falls and hurts himself is taken to the place where he was hurt and the injury is pressed against the object that caused it. It is believed the pain can be made to flow back into the object.

“‘That’s called a contact assist,’ Teresa Summers said. ‘There is also a fever assist. We were discouraged from seeking medical help or giving medication, even Tylenol, to bring down a fever. Instead, you get the child to hold an object still. That’s supposed to bring down the fever. When it doesn’t work, it’s because you aren’t doing it right or didn’t repeat it often enough. I tried it on my child. Naturally, it didn’t work.’”

[From the New York Post]

Good luck Suri!