The cover story in this week’s Enquirer is all about Julia Robert’s long-standing feud with her husband’s family. She is said to have forced them to go to therapy in order to work out what she perceives as their dysfunctional relationships. Her husband Danny Moder’s sister Jyl is an alcoholic and has often gotten into screaming matches with Julia.

Julia put her foot down and said that the whole Moder side of the family had to go to counseling or they wouldn’t get a chance to see their new grandson. She even wanted to go to therapy with them, but that idea was shot down. When she learned that they had discontinued their sessions, Julia freaked out, yelled “get out!” to her husband, and decided once and for all that they weren’t going to see her new baby.

“Julia has long felt that Danny’s family is dysfunctional - especially his sister Jyl, who has battled alcoholism for years now.

“Julia felt the counseling was necessary for the Moders so they could better fit in with HER new family and understand HER needs.”

She screamed :”Get out!” according to the insider, when Danny broke the news of the therapy lapse during a family vacation in Hawaii, just weeks before Julia gave birth to the couple’s third child, Henry Daniel, on June 18.

She’s so livid, says the source, the 39-year-old mom of three has now issued an ultimatum to the Moder family: Get back in counseling or you won’t see the new baby.

[From The National Enquirer print edition, July 16, 2007]

In January there was a story that Julia Roberts pissed off her in-laws by not telling them she was pregnant before she made an official announcement.

The Enquirer story says that some of Danny’s family blame Julia for their mother’s unexpected death from a heart attack. Julia famously snatched him away from his last wife and this was said to have upset his mother. Two years after Danny’s mother-in-law passed, Julia didn’t attend a memorial service for her due to tension with her sister-in-law, Jyl.

Family dynamics are always hard and you never know who did what, but it seems like Julia could at least let Danny’s family spend a few hours with little Henry.

Julia is shown in the header image out on 6/30 with baby Henry in a sling. He was born less than a month ago, on June 18th. Thanks to Splash News for this photo.

Matthew McConaughey’s girlfriend, Brazilian model Camilla Alves, is said to be fed up with his free-living bachelor ways. He may live in a small Airstream trailer, but that doesn’t mean that his place is clean. Camilla is supposedly annoyed that his movable home, now parked near the beach in Malibu, is such a mess and that there’s no space for her to put her stuff. She’s said to not being staying with him until he cleans it out for her.

After three months of dating, the Brazilian model has had enough of his dirty living space and is refusing to stay there if he doesn’t do something about it. “Camilla’s not a high maintenance girl,” says a friend close tot he couple, “But Matt’s trailer is such a mess, she can’t even find room to put her stuff!…”

Until recently, Camilla loved Matthew’s laid-back lifestyle, but since he hasn’t shown any motivation to either go through his junk or move, the brunette beauty has gotten overwhelmed with the small space (an 8′ x 28′ trailer) and has demanded he clean the place out.

“Matthew has lots of pictures from past relationships, along with tons of football memorabilia,” says the insider. “Camilla doesn’t think he’s made any effort to make her feel at home.”

[From Star Magazine print edition, July 16, 2007]

The article goes on to say that Camilla wants Matt to buy a house eventually, which sounds like a typical case of a woman thinking she can change a guy. She’s young though, in her early 20s, (although I can’t figure out her exact age as she just came on the radar when she started dating McConaughey) and maybe she doesn’t realize that men don’t change despite your best intentions for them.

Header image is of McConaughey and Alves on the beach in mid June. Thanks to Splash News.

I was certain that J.Lo was the one pressuring her husband Marc Anthony to join Tom Cruise’s Scientology cult, but a recent article in The National Enquirer suggests otherwise. Lopez recently said that she didn’t understand the negative portrayal of the soul-sucking Scientology cult in the media, because it seems benign to her since she’s buddies with so many brainwashed members and given the fact that her dad has been involved with it for 20 years.

It may be the case that if her dad couldn’t convert her that promises of movie roles from Cruise won’t either. The story has it that Lopez and Anthony were arguing at their Miami Superbowl show over whether they would tell an attending Tom Cruise that they were ready to join the cult for real instead of just trying it out and dabbling in the courses. Anthony urged J.Lo to say she was ready, but she told him she wasn’t so sure and that they should wait:

“Marc’s pushed Jennifer to embrace Scientology because he thinks it will boost her career. He also thinks it will benefit him and raise his profile in Hollywood,” revealed a source…

“It’s become a sore point in their marriage. And J.Lo’s unwillingness to accept Marc’s demands led them to fight in Miami, where they argued loudly and she was left in tears…”

“Tom and Katie (Holmes) travelled to Miami to see them perform at a pre-Super Bowl party, and Marc had wanted to tell Tom that night that they were fully committed, but he couldn’t - and that’s what led to the fight.”

[From The National Enquirer print edition, March 12, 2007]

They say that Lopez’s mother Lupe, a devoted Catholic, advised her against joining Scientology and said it could hurt her career. Marc Anthony has been influenced by a Scientology teacher with whom he’s been seen out with lately, and that likely prompted him to pressure his wife into joining.

If this news is true then good for J.Lo, it’s only going to cost her money and common sense if she joins Scientology.

Lopez is set to sing on American Idol on April 11, which is sure to be better for her career than being known as a cult member.

Here are pictures of Lopez and Marc Anthony performing at the Viva Romance concert in Miami on March 3rd. What lovely outfits she’s wearing. Pictures [via]

The National Enquirer reports that Brad Pitt is feeling confined within his fishbowl life with ever-shrinking starlet Angelina Jolie and their three children. They use his understandable grumpiness at paparazzi in the days following Angelina’s mother’s death as evidence, and drag out the old story that he’s frustrated with Angelina’s jealousy over his ex, with the added detail that he wants out of the relationship.

I don’t really buy that, and think they’re just jumping to conclusions based on public knowledge about the couple.

The one thing they do say that seems like legitimate news to me is the fact that Pitt initially refused to kiss a pretty redhead for a scene in the movie he’s currently filming in New Orleans, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. He eventually gave in, but why would he say no at first? There must have been some reason behind it.

Here’s what The Enquirer says about Brangelina’s relationship and Brad’s refusal to kiss an actress for a scene:

“I just can’t take it anymore. I want out!”

Those are the anguished words of Brad Pitt - who’s in the middle of a meltdown and desperately seeking a way out of his fishbowl life with Angelina Jolie.

Concerned pals say they realized Brad had nearly reached the breaking point when the normally mellow actor exploded at photographers - twice!

And they blame Brad’s emotional crisis on the constant public scrutiny connected to having too many kids too fast, his guilt over dumping ex-wife Jennifer Aniston and Angelina’s raging jealousy…

Some insiders are wondering if the effects of Angelina’s jealousy have now spread to the set of Brad’s latest movie.

According to a source on the set of “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” the highly professional actor stunned director David Fincher by refusing to kiss a gorgeous redhead specifically chosen for a scene filmed on Jan. 22.

“Brad looked at her and said, ‘Nah, I don’t think so,’” explained the set source.

“David had actually picked the woman personally and didn’t understand why Brad didn’t like her.

“The feeling among the crew was that Angelina didn’t like the girl because she was a stunning redhead. Obviously, Brad has been known to fall in love with a co-star, so he may havebeen trying to avoid any problems at home.”

In the end, Brad was convinced to do the kissing scene, said the source.

[From The National Enquirer print edition, January 19, 2007]

It could just be that Brad thought his character would never be able to score with a woman like that or that he didn’t like the way the scene was unfolding.

I don’t really believe this story because it’s all publically known details about Brad and Angelina - they mention Angelina pulling Brad away from Courteney Cox at the Golden Globes - with the emotional details filled in.

One cute real story about Brad and Angelina is that they wanted to escape incognito from a New Orleans restaurant near their new home there, and staff gave them Mardi Gras disguises so that they could make it home without being recognized.

Star also reports in this week’s issue that Brad and Angelina are not safe in their new digs in New Orleans because they live in a house that faces the street in a crime-ridden area. One of their neighbors was murdered in a foiled heist on January 4th. Brad and Angelina have gotten rid of most of the strong-armed security that got them into trouble in Namibia and India with abuse toward the paparazzi, but they do seem to have a bodyguard or two on hand.

Here’s Pitt on the set of his new movie in New Orleans. I think the middle picture is a stunt double though, because the face looks different. Thanks to SimplyBrad.com for these pictures.

Tom and Katie sure looked happy at Jada Pinkett Smith’s party on 2/9, but recent tabloids have them fighting over various issues related to Katie’s newfound independence.

Last week we reported that In Touch was calling her a nag, and the February 12 issue of Star claims that Tom is livid over the fact that Katie wants to take baby Suri on a three month film shoot with her.

They also claim Tom wants another baby right away, but that Katie is putting him off in favor of trying to get her career back on track. Tom is even trying to control Katie’s career and is rejecting potential roles for her, but Katie isn’t having that:

Sources say Katie, 28, is coming out of her shell and asserting herself. And after more than a year on hiatus, she’s even returning to work, having just joined Diane Keaton and Queen Latifah in signing up for the crime caper Mad Money, which starts filming in Shreveport, LA, this spring. Naturally, she wants to bring Suri with her, but Tom has other ideas. “Tom is very angry about that,” says the source. Why? [Tom] will be busy running a movie studio, United Artists, back in L.A. and can’t afford to spend much time in Louisiana…

“He’s going to make sure Katie has a security force and Scientology minders with her,” says the source. “He’ll visit Louisiana some, but when he’s not there he’s going to be sure he has eyes and ears listening in for him!” (The couple’s rep denies this story.

Where Suri will be living this spring isn’t the only issue the couple is fighting over. For the last few months, Katie’s been reading scripts, but, says another insider, “Tom rejected everything! They were either not good enough or not hit-movie matieral.”

[From Star magazine print edition, February 12, 2007]

This could be true that Tom and Katie are fighting over her career and where Suri will stay, but they seem to be keeping up appearances well as usual. If Katie is breaking out of her brainwashed shell, there are bound to be some problems between them.

One thing Tom is no longer in control of is his young bride’s height. CityRag points out that Katie no longer appears shorter than Tom like in their wedding pictures, and seems to be wearing heels in these latest candids.

Thanks to KatieHolmes.com for these pics and Sammie’s Effluvia for the story.

Lately Britney seems like a sad sack who can’t keep a man. At first everyone was championing Britney for surprising freeloading K-Fed with divorce papers on election day. After Britney showed us all her c-section scar and was seen out partying for months at a time with questionable company, K-Fed’s character seemed spotless in comparison. Throw in a Superbowl commercial in which the best minds in marketing manage to make him look humble and like a good rapper, and he’s definitely ahead in the battle for public opinion and perhaps child custody.

People say model Isaac Cohen left Britney after a few weeks due to drama and pressure too early in the relationship. Isaac gave an interview to British tabloid News of the World in which he describes Britney as an insecure person who loves sex and cannot stand to face the reality of her life. He said she was miserable and asked him over and over if she was fat. He also said she has her wedding dress framed and hanging on a wall in her bedroom at home and is not moving on with her life after K-Fed.

In last week’s National Enquirer they reported that Britney had a meeting with K-Fed at her place and told him she’d give him a huge chunk of cash in exchange for getting back with her. They say she’s miserable without him and begged him to take her growing ass back. (I wanted to report it earlier, but was scrambling to get ready for my trip.)

“Britney begged Kevin to come back to her,” a source told The Enquirer.

“She told him, ‘I love you, I want you back, I’m so sorry.’ She’s offered him money, includind signing over all the proceeds from the sale of their $13.5 million Malibu mansion, plus unlimited access to her fortune, if he’ll be her man again.

[From The National Enquirer print edition, February 12, 2007]

They also claim the Britney said she’d stop partying and get outpatient treatment for her drinking problem if Kevin would go to counselling with her. She wants him to move back in with her, and says she’ll let his kids with Shar come over more often and will help finance his mother’s retirement.

K-Fed was said to be considering her offer, and his supposed buddy told the Enquirer “‘Kevin believes Britney will give him $10 million up front just to reconcile. He might get more in a divorce, but he feels that by staying married to Britney, he’ll keep his boys close.’”

If these two do get back together, Britney is said to be planning an interview to announce that they’re giving their doomed marriage another try for the tabloids’ sake.

Now The Enquirer is saying that Britney had sympathy sex with K-Fed in early December after they were already broken up, and that of course they didn’t use protection. She supposedly told him she thought she was pregnant yet again, but that it turned out just to be a scare or a revenge tactic. She wasn’t really pregnant, and K-Fed told her it probably wasn’t his, anyway:

“Britney told Kevin she might be with child number 3, Kevin just said ‘So, if you’re pregnant, it’s not mine!’” revealed a source.

The fighting Federlines had reunited for one night and had sex just after her December 2 birthday, said the source…

But soon after that torrid evening, it became clear to Britney that Kevin was interested only in the kids, divulged the source.

Feeling spurned, she stopped taking his calls. Kevin never saw the boys for the Christmas holidays despite leaving numerous messages for Britney.

The two didn’t talk again until after New Year’s…

No longer able to hold time with the kids over Kevin’s head, the insider believes that she pinned her hopes on the pregnancy scare to lure him back.

Instead, it had the opposite effect…

Kevin believes Britney didn’t use birth control when sleeping with other men, either. And because he believes she’s had so much sex without protection, he told her he’ll never sleep with her again, according to the source.

I’m not sure I buy the Enquirer’s stories about Britney, because their sources seem to be K-Fed’s buddies or PR team that works for pot or whomever. It could be true that Britney told him she thought she was pregnant, but it’s just as likely that they’re trying to smear her.

Assuming all this garbage is true, it looks like K-Fed was considering getting back with Britney and that his love of bling and custom cars might have been the achilles heel she tried to exploit by dangling a bunch of cash in front of him. She ruined her chances, though, by telling him she could be pregnant after they’d only had sex once.

It’s also possible that these stories conflict and that one person is saying she tried to get him back by pretending to be pregnant and another is saying she used her fortune to lure him. Either way, she’s still a sad sap.

The latest issue of OK! Magazine has a cover story claiming that Angelina is “Tormented by Guilt!” (emphasis added) after her stupid comment inviting Aniston to sit down with her and have a nice girl chat about the fact that she lured her hapless husband away. Commentors point out that Angelina never brought up the subject that she would like to talk to Aniston and that the interview makes it seem as if she was asked about it and was just answering a question.

I was fooled into buying OK! as they claimed it was an exclusive story and I thought it might be an interview, but all they do is speculate that Angelina is going to make it up to Aniston for supposedly pouring salt in the wound of her failed marriage or for ripping open the scab or whatever. They have an “insider” who claims that Angie is going to figure out some way to apologize to her for talking about it yet again, but it seems like all they did was rehash the Angelina vs. Aniston feud to sell magazines. It worked on me.

The more interesting part of the article is an inset story about how Angelina and Aniston have similar family backgrounds. They both come from LA acting families, and each went years without talking to a parent after a perceived wrong:

While Angelina and Jen may appear to be opposite, their backgrounds are actually quite similar. Both were born in Los Angeles to acting families. Jen is the daughter of soap star John Aniston and retired actress Nancy Dow; Angelina is the daughter of Oscar winner Jon Voight and retired actress Marcheline Bertrand. When Angelina and Jen were children, their fathers cheated on and then left their mothers. As adults, each woman became estranged from one parent: Angelina hasn’t spoken to her father since he declared in 2002 that she had “mental problems,” while Jen only recently reconnected with her mom, who gave a tell-all interview about the star in 1996. With so much in common, maybe Brad’s women can set aside their differences and be friends after all.

[from OK! print version, January 15, 2007]

At least Aniston is talking to her mom again, but when is Angelina going to make up with her dad? He’s made it clear that he would love to see his grandchildren, but the poor guy has to read interviews with Angelina giving more personal details to the press than she would ever share with him. He doesn’t seem like the sharpest tool in the shed, and he recently called Zahara “Shakira” by mistake, but kids deserve to know their grandparents and it doesn’t seem like Angelina is being fair to Voight.

What is it about Brad that draws him to such f’ed up women, or is this type of family estrangement common and could that explain it? I’ve never heard of any of my friends not talking to their parents for years. Even if they have bad relationships with their family, they deal with it and argue. When grandchildren are involved you put on a happy face and let your kids get spoiled.

Update: I’ve been thinking about this, and of course there are unforgivable abuse-type situations that would lead someone not to talk to family for years. I did not mean to sound so callous about it. This sounds like more of a smack-talking issue, though I’m sure there’s more involved that we don’t know about.

Right after giving a revealing interview to Harper’s Bazaar about her struggles with her long term relationship, Drew Barrymore has reportedly called it quits with her boyfriend of over five years, Strokes drummer Fabrizio Moretti. It’s possible they’re just taking a break, but the news doesn’t sound good for these two, and Fabrizio has moved out of her place:

“Drew said they needed time off,” a source close to the actress tells Us.

Confirms a Moretti pal, “Fab is now living back in his old apartment.”

The pair – who hooked up in April 2002 – seemed a good match on the surface, friends say.

“Drew has always had a taste for subculture,” Barrymore pal Courtney Love tells Us.

But they had suffered some rocky times. Tongues wagged when she skipped the February 2005 nuptials of Strokes frontman Julian Casablancas; months later, the duo got in a public tiff in Santa Monica, California.

In fact, “she broke up with him twice before this,” says a Barrymore insider.

At issue? Clashing personalities.

“He’s younger, and she’s more worldly,” says a source of Barrymore. “He doesn’t like the Hollywood stuff. He doesn’t get her friends.”

But don’t count them out just yet, adds the source. “This is exactly what happened last time they took a break.”

In Drew’s interview in Bazaar she cautioned women not to “take love and your relationship so g-ddamned heavy all the time.” She also said she was in “unchartered water” in her relationship with Fabrizio as she had only been in relationships of 2-3 years before Fabrizio. She seemed to suggest they were out of the infatuation stage and that she was trying to adjust to the changes that come with long term relationships.

Maybe we know now why Shiloh is rarely seen out in public with Angelina and Brad, Angie thinks she’s a blob:

“I think I feel so much more for Madd and Zee because they’re survivors, they came through so much,” Jolie says in the new issue of U.K. Elle.

“Shiloh seemed so privileged from the moment she was born. I have less inclination to feel for her…I met my other kids when they were 6 months old, they came with a personality. A newborn really is this…Yes, a blob! But now she’s starting to have a personality…I’m conscious that I have to make sure I don’t ignore her needs, just because I think the others are more vulnerable.”

All babies are vulnerable, and to try to compensate for the fact that one of your children is biologically yours while the others are adopted seems wrong to me. Maybe Angelina should hire someone to help her talk to the press. I mean, if she feels this way it seems like she should hide it. She hasn’t talked to her father in years and this statement makes it seem like she has trouble with family relationships to say the least.

Shiloh certainly shouldn’t be more valued than her other children, but she shouldn’t be snubbed in favor of the others, either. Am I misinterpreting what she’s saying here? I mean, she said “I feel so much more for Mad and Zee… I have less inclination to feel for [Shiloh]” because she didn’t have a personality when she was born. That kind of sends off alarm bells for me. Is Angelina saying Shiloh’s less valuable because she didn’t save her from a life of hardship? Who doesn’t love their own kid to pieces?

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.