Oh, for Pete's sake!
This "Who broke up Tom and Nicole?" stuff is really getting out of hand. Bereft of any information beyond the couple's initial announcement, the press has gone in relentless pursuit of a culprit, any culprit, on whom to pin the break.
Russell Crowe? The latest rumor has him back with Meg Ryan.
George Clooney? His publicist swears he and Nicole are just good friends.
Penelope Cruz? Us Weekly speculates that she's busy getting it on with Nicolas Cage. And John Hurt, who stars with both Cruz and Cage in "Captain Corelli's Mandolin," has rushed to her defense: "Penelope is a very affectionate woman and just because she puts her arm around Tom Cruise doesn't mean she is having an affair with him."
But thanks to the British tabs, the press has now sunk to a new level: Blaming itself.
Or, at least, one of its own.
Let's just say someone out there thinks Esquire writer Tom Junod has a secret.
The Scottish Daily Record has apparently taken that playfully steamy profile of Kidman Junod wrote for Esquire back in August 1999 a little too seriously. And -- reprinting sections of the article in which Kidman is interrupted by a phone call from Cruise as she lounges in Junod's hotel room bed -- the tabloid has concluded that the men's magazine writer is "the man who started the rot in Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman's marriage."
Consequently, Junod has been forced to go the way of Clooney and Kidman's ex, Australian actor Marcus Graham, and issue a denial.
"Gee," Junod says when I tell him about the Daily Record piece, "that's nutty."
Couldn't have said it better myself.
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No pun intended
"It's a matter of taste, I suppose."
-- Julianne Moore on whether "Hannibal" is gross.
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Eminem's gay banter
Sounds like all those olive branches from Eminem's relatives won't build a bridge to a happy family life.
The rapper -- who will, in fact, duet with Elton John at the Grammys later this month -- is now downplaying his violent lyrics about gays, telling the BBC, "To be honest, I don't think about gay men. I only said that shit to piss people off. They just don't get it."
But he's not backing away from his mean remarks about his mom, who's suing him for defaming her character in song and interviews. In fact, if anything, he's cranking the nasty factor up to 11.
If he could go back in time, he says, "I'd probably go back to the day I was born and kill my mother as soon as she had me."
And you thought you had issues with your mother.
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Marshall's new best friend
"I know I'm going to get a lot of flak from various people who are going to picket the show ... [But] if I thought for one minute that he was [hateful], I wouldn't do it."
-- Elton John on his upcoming duet with Eminem, who, John says, came up with the idea to team up.
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Move over, Sean John ...
Underwear, Doggy-style?
Snoop Dogg is getting into women's underwear. Or ... onto.
The rapper has apparently agreed to license his image to a new line of women's underwear designed by New York fashionista Ivy Supersonic. The undies, which will feature Snoop's image smack-dab on the crotch, will be called "Snoop on the Poop."
Not "Poop on the Snoop"?
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