There are few things that are even close to as scary as having Tom Cruise as your dad. Except maybe having Xenu as your dad. But let’s be real – that’s just about the same thing. The next closest approximation would be having Tom Cruise as your godfather. On the one hand, he’s a little further away and probably won’t ground you. But on the other hand, that means your parents actually consciously chose to bring Tom Cruise into your life. It’s not like you were born to him and it’s just a sad twist of fate. Your parents thought so little of you that they decided to make Xenu’s next in command responsible for your spiritual and emotional well-being. Well, if you want to take the old school approach to being a godfather. There’s the chance they just did it to get you some really killer swag.

Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony – who have long claimed to be Catholic and not Scientologists – supposedly want Tom to be the godfather to twins Max and Emme. But to be fair, Tom has already gifted the babies with more than $200,000 worth of stuff. If that doesn’t buy you a godfathership in this day and age, I’d like to know what does.

Jennifer Lopez wants to Tom Cruise to be godfather to her newborn twins. The ‘Jenny From The Block’ singer — who gave birth to son Max and daughter Emme on February 22 — has convinced husband Marc Anthony to give Tom the role despite their differences in religious beliefs. Tom, a devout follower of the mysterious religion of Scientology; Lopez and Anthony Catholic.

A source said: “Tom is delighted. Marc wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to have a Scientologist as the kids’ godfather, especially as he and Jennifer are both Catholic. But in the end Jennifer managed to convince him to agree.”

Tom — who has a 2-year-old daughter, Suri, with wife Katie Holmes — has already showered the twins with gifts. The actor reportedly spent around $200,000 on designer christening outfits for Max and Emme, ordered a giant fish tank for their nursery and gave them complete Disney DVD box sets.

[From Showbiz Spy]

Supposedly Tom and Katie are going to throw a “star-studded” party for the twins that’s costing them upwards of $200,000. It will have a “Welcome to the World” them. I have to give Tom credit – he certainly knows how to buy someone’s love. I don’t want to sound spineless, but if Tom wants to through $400,000 worth of stuff my way, I can totally be talked into changing my tune.

Actor/scientologist/couch jumper Tom Cruise is reportedly miffed that a new strain of medical marijuana has been nicknamed in his dubious honor. The weed, dubbed “Tom Cruise Purple” on the street, reportedly is so potent, it makes you see things that aren’t there. Although, since it’s named for Cruise, it should make you dance around your house in your underpants and socks to “Old Time Rock n’ Roll.” Cruise, who has been embarrassingly vocal about his objection to prescription drugs, isn’t flattered by the moniker and wants his legal team to put the kibosh on it, according to rumors.

Tom Cruise isn’t getting any giggles from a new strain of medical marijuana being marketed as “Tom Cruise Purple.”

Word is that the actor’s lawyers are taking a serious look at the strong brand of bud after we brought it to their attention.

One of Cruise’s friends found it “outrageous” that licensed cannabis clubs in Northern California are selling vials of pot featuring a picture of Cruise laughing hysterically.

Like other followers of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, Cruise is opposed to the use of psychotropic drugs.

Staffers at several California clinics we called said they were forbidden to discuss any of the herbal varieties in their “inventory.”

But one weed devotee said, “I heard it’s the kind of pot that makes you hallucinate.”

[From Rush & Malloy]

Tom– if it weren’t prescription strength, would that make you feel better about it? What a bunch of rubbish. What is his lawyer going to do- bust into every pot party in Southern California and slap the hippies with an injunction every time their client’s name is mentioned? Good luck with that. Just when I thought Tom might actually be getting his sense of humor back.

There was a photo that was online late last year of Tom Cruise bald and wearing a fat suit. The NY Times reports today that it’s from an uncredited cameo in the upcoming Ben Stiller comedy “Tropic Thunder” also starring Robert Downey Jr., Jack Black, Matthew McConaughey and Nick Nolte. They wanted to keep Cruise’s appearance a secret, but the news got out at an industry screening of the film, put out by Paramount Pictures.

Paramount head Summer Redstone decided to cut ties with Cruise’s production company in August, 2006 after public outburst against pharmaceutical drugs. Redstone made it clear that Cruise was no longer working with him due to his behavior, and said “His recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount.”

Cruise and Redstone had lunch last week in what many people thought was a bid to patch things up, and now it’s known that he plays a character in “Tropic Thunder” that is thought to be a parody of Redstone. The screening audience was howling with laughter at Cruise’s scene:

At an industry screening Tuesday night of the forthcoming comedy “Tropic Thunder” from Paramount Pictures and its unit DreamWorks, Tom Cruise brought down the house with his surprise portrayal of a bald, hairy-chested, foulmouthed, dirty-dancing movie mogul of the kind who is only too happy to throw an actor to the wolves when his popularity cools.

The several hundred Hollywood agents, managers, publicists and reporters at the screening on the Paramount lot here couldn’t have missed the joke. In August 2006 Mr. Cruise — after spending many years at Paramount and appearing in some of its biggest hits, including “Top Gun” and the “Mission: Impossible” series — was sent packing by Mr. Redstone, the chairman of Viacom, the studio’s parent.

Two years later Mr. Cruise is back in a Paramount movie, playing a craggy ingrate in what is shaping up as one of the studio’s best prospects for the summer. The movie, a raunchfest directed by Ben Stiller, about a bunch of actors whose jungle war movie turns unexpectedly real, also stars Mr. Stiller, Robert Downey Jr., Jack Black, Matthew McConaughey and Nick Nolte.

The humor may have been heightened by knowledge that Mr. Cruise and Mr. Redstone only last week kissed and made up over a very public lunch at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

[From the NY Times via Huffington Post]

Why do you have to go endear yourself to the industry like that, Tom Cruise? You’re supposed to be a batshit crazy cult leader, not a funny guy who pokes fun at his career setbacks.

Robert Downey Jr. is also said to have brought down the house. Downey plays an actor playing a soldier in blackface, so it’s more of a meta-role and not a straight case of a white actor playing an African American role.

“Tropic Thunder” will be out in the US on August 15, and is about a group of actors filming a Vietnam war movie who get abandoned in an actual war. It’s thought that the film will be a real hit for Paramount, and it could do wonders to revive Cruise’s image.

Header image is of Tom and Katie pre-shorter haircut out at The Cut restaurant on a double date with Will Smith and Jada on 2/27/08, thanks to WENN.

Here’s the trailer, which does not include Cruise:

Gawker has a new video of Tom Cruise’s birthday party on the Scientology Cruise Ship. It features footage of the band playing the theme songs from Top Gun and Mission Impossible while Cruise whoops and claps in the front row. Then Cruise takes the stage to sing a duet of “That Old Time Rock and Roll.” He jams out with the singer, jumps around, and looks like he’s having a great time.

In the Church of Scientology’s statement on the Andrew Morton bio they say that Tom Cruise does not hold any position of authority in the church, but Gawker points out that they’re willing to spend what must be at least six figures on this party for him.

The thing is, this video is fun and not that damning if you forget that the Scientologists are involved. Watching this, I was thinking “I wonder if everyone who works on that ship is a damn Scientologist. Is that singer a Scientologist? Can anyone escape their love bomb?” You know if Tom Cruise were talking Scientology to me I would probably look down at his wild sexy eyes and just smile and nod, losing all that pent up suppressive knowledge and anger. Damn you, Gawker, for making cults look like they have fun in between taking money and making people disown their families.

The video seems to be taken from a DVD of Scientology moments, because you can see someone chose from a menu at the beginning and there are small icons of Tom Cruise. Maybe Gawker has their hands on that DVD and is going to release more clips next week. Please let that be the case. And no more party videos. We want more speeches we don’t understand about things we’ll never grasp unless we embrace the program and surrender all our worldly goods and critical thinking skills.

You can watch the Tom Cruise party video at Gawker.com.

Update: This clip is undated, and seems to pre-date Tom’s relationship with Katie Holmes.

Speculation is rife that Christina Aguilera and that guy she’s married to were paid $1.5 million for the first pictures of new son Max. Harlow Winter Madden is worth about half that, although no figure has been put on what the price might have been if the babies had appeared on the cover together.

Jennifer Lopez is set to make $4-6 million for her twins, which is similar to the high sum paid for Shiloh Jolie-Pitt’s debut, which earned a whopping $4.1 million. Her adopted sibling was not considered as cute at age four as a baby, and was worth about half that.

Why do babies make so much money for magazine covers? Is it because celebrities demand that much compensation for losing their private life? (Not that this stops them complaining later when paparazzi try to take pictures of the same child.) It’s because their covers sell.

“We just do tremendously well on the newsstand when we’ve got celebrity babies on the cover,” says Caperton (Kate, OK! magazine deputy editor), “because people love being with their favorite stars in these really important moments in their lives.”

Setting up a safe shoot with a guaranteed paycheck works out well for the parents, too.

“It’s more beneficial for celebrities to cooperate with a company like us to do their baby pictures versus not doing it, because then paparazzi will chase them and will not stop until they get the picture of that celebrity with the baby,” (Roxanne, Getty Images) Motamedi says. “But once the pictures are out, there is really no value of paparazzi chasing them and trying to get the baby shot.”

New York Daily News

Is it because we love to see how mum’s looking post-birth? They usually look way better than anyone else. There is a reason new mothers rarely send out pictures of mother and baby together in those first few days – the baby looks cute and they look like they’ve been through Hell. Probably because they have.

Or is it just because we all love babies?

Of course, babies don’t have to be fodder for checkbook journalism. Vanity Fair didn’t pay anything for rights to the first photos of Suri Cruise, daughter of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. But that September 2006 issue still sold 60% more copies on newsstands than the average for that half of the year. The sell-through was such an anomaly that the title was forced to warn against comparing September 2006 sales with the abnormally successful issue a year prior.

Plenty of editors say paying up will pay you back. “It depends on what the cost is, but it’s a nice positive antidote to the more crazy celebrity stories that go on,” said Sarah Ivens, editor in chief of OK, part of Richard Desmond’s Northern & Shell empire.

AdAge

Oh, I like that idea. I’d much rather see a baby than Britney Spears looking like a train wreck. Interestingly, Britney the train wreck must sell more magazines than her son Sean Preston, when he featured on the cover of People sales were down 15%.

Interestingly, I love babies more than ice cream, but actually couldn’t care less about a picture of one. That could be anyone’s child, one baby is pretty hard to tell from another. That’s why they are so careful putting name tags on them in the hospital. Partly because they can’t talk, but mostly due to the fact it’s hard to tell them apart.

So, I’m sensing a business opportunity here. I have a particularly cute baby at my place. Blue eyed, smiles lots, has a reasonable amount of dark hair, but not like the crazy mop Suri Cruise had. Wanna hire her? Just in case your ugly celebrity baby isn’t up to the pictures. The bidding starts at $1 million – that should pay for her and her siblings to go to college.

Picture note by Celebitchy: Remember these baby pictures of Shiloh? They were a big deal when they came out in June, 2006 and were featured in People and Hello!.

Anyone who reads Celebitchy with a bit of regularity knows that we’re not exactly the biggest Tom Cruise fans. Though to be fair, it appears that not much of the internet really is anymore. What with the crazy rants and such. But he is known for doing kind things. Star has a story this week about how Tom rescued an injured hawk. I know, makes you imagine him shimmying up an evergreen or something right? Not the most pleasant image. But Tom went about his rescue in good old Hollywood fashion - he sent a jet.

As evidence by his recent Scientology video making the rounds on the Internet, Tom Cruise feels an obligation to help out whenever possible - even if it’s an injured bird. “Tom has a big heart,” said a friend. “Recently, when he was told about an endangered hawk that was struck by a car in Phoenix, he immediately jumped into action and had his private jet pick it up and fly it to a hawk sanctuary in Colorado, where it could get treatment. Thanks to the quick action by Tom, the bird of prey was healed and is going to be released back into the wild.”

[From Star, Feb. 11th 2008, print edition]

So although this story seems ridiculous and over the top, Tom Cruise himself is ridiculous and over the top, so it didn’t seem out of the realm of possibility. I started writing this article with the intent to reference a few other of Tom’s random good deeds and rescues that I’ve heard about over the years. And when I read them, I started to realize how ridiculous they all are, when looked at in total. And then I found this article from Page Six that questions all of Tom’s wacky heroism. Here’s a few examples:

2003: while filming “The Last Samurai” in New Zealand, Cruise supposedly helped a local family change a flat tire on a country road and assisted a young girl in catching her runaway horse. He also donated $3,800 to a local school that needed a “sun shelter.”

1998: Cruise rushed to the defense of a woman being mugged on a London street and stopped thieves from making off with more than $150,000 in jewelry.

1996: he summoned an ambulance to help an aspiring actress who was the victim of a hit-and-run, then paid her $7,000 emergency room bill. That same year, Cruise was said to have pulled two young boys to safety after they were almost crushed in a mob of out-of-control fans at the London premiere of “Mission: Impossible.”

1993: While he and then-wife Nicole Kidman were vacationing on a 210-foot yacht in Capri in 1993, they were reported to have come to the aid of a family whose yacht had caught on fire. Cruise and Kidman allegedly rescued the family from their life raft and took them aboard their luxury yacht until help arrived.

[From Page Six]

It does seem a little… unusual… when viewed as a whole. I don’t know, maybe all celebrities fend off criminals and rescue run away horses, and they just keep quiet about it. But when you look at a list of Tom’s do-goodery, it makes you think that something fishy is afoot. While I really do hope he saved a poor hawk by sending his private jet (because I’m sure there’s no more logical way to transport an injured bird than by Tom Cruise’s jet), Tom’s starting to reach urban legend status.

Kirstie Alley gives an interview about her “religion” Scientology in this week’s issue of In Touch. In it, she defends Tom Cruise and says that Scientology is as valid – and complex – as any other religion, and deserves the same respect. Alley also says that Scientologists have their own language, and that’s why Tom Cruise came off as such a nutball (my word, not hers) in all the Scientology videos that have been released over the last two weeks. She compares us listening to them to a Rabbi talking to Christians. I’m not sure how offended I should be by that.

The videos were made for Scientologists. And - we use abbreviations a lot - Tom was using words meant for a Scientology audience. On the web, the video is taken out of context. It’s like a rabbi addressing a Christian church speaking in Hebrew - no one would understand him.

[From In Touch, print edition, February 4, 2008]

Alley also goes on to say that the videos were edited to make Tom seem foolish. I don’t want to be a total bitch here, but it doesn’t take a lot to make Tom Cruise seem foolish. He does a pretty good job left to his own devices.

There’s a lovely section on how Scientologists help people during catastrophes. You know, like how they rushed to the World Trade Center, and continue to honor themselves for their 911 detox program. They were also ever-present (and apparently ever annoying) after the Virginia Tech shootings and the Oklahoma City bombing:

“We have different things called “assists.” For example, after the Oklahoma City bombing, I went in with the Red Cross to help give kids that were in comas assists and after, all of them were doing better. Did I cure them? I’m not going to say I did. The word is assist, you can assist something to be better. That’s why Tom said, ‘We’re Scientologists. It’s our responsibility.’”

[From In Touch, print edition, February 4, 2008]

You “assist something to be better.” That’s a good example of Scientology phrasing. I will point out that one common feature of cults is unusual verbiage and repetition of phrases specific to that cult. It’s also a common technique used to brainwash someone.

And what of Tom’s prestigious “Freedom Medal of Valor” that he’s shown receiving in one of the videos?

“You win Freedom Medal in our church by doing something extraordinary - about the call of duty in the area of human rights or civil rights. I won one once - I was an international spokesperson for Narconon, which is a drug rehab and education program.

[From In Touch, print edition, February 4, 2008]

Narconon is one of the sneakier Scientology scams. It’s designed to sound like Al-anon, Narcotics Anonymous, and Alcoholics Anonymous. You don’t really think about it when you hear the name, and you assume Narconon, which is run by the church of Scientology, is related to these other legitimate twelve step programs. Narconon is just another program used by Scientologists to take advantage of desperate, vulnerable people. But Alley has no problem shilling for it to In Touch.

Kirstie also describes how Scientology saved her life. She says that while driving to California to become an actress, it took her 26 days to get there because she had to stop and score cocaine all over the country. She then supposedly walked into ONE Scientology session and came out never craving drugs again.

[From In Touch, print edition, February 4, 2008]

Kirstie Alley concludes the interview by talking about how Scientologists aren’t perfect, but they want the same decency and “unbigotedness” (I think she means freedom of religion) that every other religion receives. Of course to request that, you’d have to debate the definition of religion… and the definition of a cult.

Picture note by Jaybird: Here’s Kirstie Allen at the Mission Impossible III premiere in L.A on 5/4/2006. Images thanks to PR Photos.

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.

Tom Cruise’s life seems to involve a lot more talk about placentas than the average man’s. Or the average woman’s, for that matter. Tom once famously claimed that he was going to eat Suri’s placenta after she was born. When people freaked out (Western cultures generally don’t partake in the birth products of their young) he claimed it was all a joke. But because it’s Tom Cruise, most of us know he doesn’t make a lot of jokes, and the crazier something sounds, the more likely he means it. Apparently Suri’s birth wasn’t the first time Cruise has made placenta demands. According to author Andrew Morton’s highly unauthorized Tom Cruise biography, Nicole Kidman saved some of the placenta after she had a miscarriage. Why? To prove to the media that it was indeed Tom’s.

Tom Cruise’s controversial biography stirs up more outrageous allegations. The book claims that Nicole Kidman reserved some of the placenta from her miscarriage to prove Cruise was the father of her child.

Andrew Morton, the author who is facing a $100 million legal threat from the Top Gun actor and the Church of Scientology for his unauthorized biography of the actor, asserts that Kidman saved the placenta to quash media speculations regarding the paternity of the unborn baby.

“They did try to start a family [but] she sadly had a miscarriage,” Morton says. “And because of all the questions over the father, she ordered that some of the placenta be saved in order to prove paternity - the fact that Tom Cruise was the father.”

[From All Headline News]

Sounds a little unbalanced right? Who do you think is more likely to be the brains behind that idea: Nicole Kidman – who seems relatively sane, if not a little over-botoxed, or Tom Cruise – who… does the crazy things Tom Cruise does? I can’t even begin to give a list of all the unbalanced things the man has done and said. I wouldn’t know where to start, and I certainly wouldn’t know where to stop. There are too many things to choose from. So who do you think masterminded the whole, “let’s save a chunk for the press” idea? Probably a couch jumper.

What I really want to know is – if Tom and Nicole did indeed save some placenta for the media – what in the world did they intend to do with it? Would they have actually given it to a reporter to have it tested? Would the reporter have had to ask, or would the Cruises have been polite enough to offer? How does that kind of discussion even work? I’m a pretty big nerd whose read a lot of etiquette books – I don’t think I’ve ever run across that situation. Leave it to Tom Cruise to chart new waters every day.

Katie Holmes’ recorded times crossing various markers on the NY Marathon route were identical down to the second at nearly every point in the middle of the race to one of the guys seen jogging with her, sparking theories that she had one of the other joggers wear her chip. Her composed appearance, lack of sweat, and seemingly completely inappropriate and probably uncomfortable attire had many people claiming that she didn’t run or even walk the whole 26 and a half miles.

Fox News has an interview with the mother of the unregistered and previously-unnamed runner, Wesley Okerson, and his mom says that both he and Paul Vincent, whose times mirrored Katie’s down to the second, are her trainers, and “yes, she really ran the marathon.” Case solved then I guess.

Katie and her two trainers. Okerson is on the right. He is wearing a tracking chip despite not being registered for the race.

Defamer notes that Okerson is an aspiring actor and that he was a personal guest of the Holmes-Cruises that night at the premiere of Tom’s movie Lions for Lambs. Katie wore peep-toe heels that night and her feet looked perfectly fine. No swelling or abrasions that are common among marathon runners.

Commentors on Gossip Rocks, where we get a lot of stories, note how naturally and repeatedly Katie Holmes lied on her Punk’d episode (link leads to video) when she was led to believe that director JJ Abrams was cheating on his fiancé. She didn’t seem to have any ethical issues and instead of telling the truth or refusing to answer the fiancé about whether there was another woman in the room she said “no” over and over again when it wasn’t true. She was put in a bad position and was just trying to get out of there, but when asked “Do you always tell the truth? About everything?” she easily said “yes.”

Katie Holmes’ trainer, who was seen finishing the race with her, wearing a tracking chip despite not being registered and a bib from 2003. Katie Holmes was nowhere to be found in three different photos at this point.

Update: Thanks to Calimoonchild on Gossip Rocks for the link to this photo on sawzy’s Flickr of Wesley Okerson, who was not registered in the NY City Marathon and wore a bib from 2003, wearing a tracking chip despite the fact that he wouldn’t need one or presumably get one if he wasn’t registered. Katie Holmes is nowhere to be found, although she finished the race alongside both Okerson and Paul Vincent as seen in the photo above. Okerson is obviously behind the smiling old guy. There are three photos of just Okerson with no Katie in sight on sawzy’s Flickr. Commentor sc on our other post about this curious issue said he was a volunteer for seven hours on the course at the same spot and that the celebrities were easily spotted, but that he never saw Holmes pass.

Katie Holmes is shown outside the Late Show on 1/14/08, thanks to PRPhotos.