Tom Cruise

It's true, folks. As reported last night, Katie Couric presented the first-ever pictures of Suri Cruise to a national audience on the CBS Evening News.

In case you didn't tune in, however, have a look now:

In the Vanity Fair cover story, Katie Holmes talks about how "it's been heartbreaking" to see what's being said in the press about her family and her baby.

The Gossip hopes it didn't contribute to any motherly malaise. We were just curious to see the tyke. And she's adorable. Proud father, Tom Cruise, has proven that insanity really can pay off.

Are we seeing a new Tom Cruise? For the sake of enjoyment and hilarity here at The Gossip, we certainly hope not.

First, however, Suri's pops signed a new production deals. And now? He's personally apologized to one-time friend and former nemesis, Brooke Shields. If you'lll recall, Cruise's wacky, very possible scientology mission began when he slammed the mother for using antidepressents.

We guess changes within a person are inevitable once your child's poo is bronzed.

On an appearance on the Tonight Show last night, Shields told Jay Leno that Cruise "came over to my house, and he gave me a heartfelt apology. And he apologized for bringing me into the whole thing and for everything that happened."

Brooke said she was "impressed," although failed to mention anything at all decent about Vanilla Sky.

So look at Cruise now, people. He's NOT making funny sexist comments. He IS making ammends. What's next?

Motivational posters touting his insanity?

Don't misunderstand the actor, however. He still feels the same way about drugs. According to his rep, Cruise "has not changed his position about antidepressants, which as evidenced by the black label warnings issued by the FDA on these types of drugs, are unhealthy."

Whatever. So is playing with alligators. But that hasn't stopped Beyonce.

Heralding the start of an unusual entrepreneurial relationship, Tom Cruise and his producing partner have joined forces with a new investment partnership that will fund the duo's production endeavors for the next two years.

According to the Washington Post, the announcement comes less than a week after Viacom Inc. and its Paramount Pictures unit revealed they had ended negotiations to renew the studio's 14-year deal with the insane actor. Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone fired the nutjob last week, stating bluntly that Cruise had committed "creative suicide."

Paula Wagner, Cruise's colleague and production partner in Cruise/Wagner Productions, quickly countered that C/W was not planning to renew anyway, and planned to seek other options, including a deal with hedge funds to provide about $100 million in financing.

Their new deal is with Daniel Snyder (the inept owner of the Washington Redskins), Dwight Schar (chairman of homebuilder NVR Inc.) and Mark Shapiro (President and CEO of Six Flags). Snyder, Schar and Shapiro have formed an investment partnership, First and Goal LLC.

The newly-founded corporation, which should be called Fourth and 17 LLC, in honor of the Redskins, will invest in C/W, providing the actor and his backers with development and overhead funds under a two-year deal with the option to renew long term.

"Dan Snyder and Mark Shapiro are proven winners. Paula and I look forward to many mutual successes," Cruise.

Once again, Cruise proves he's out to lunch. Proven winners? The Redskins suck! Wow, one winning season since 1999 after signing every free agent imaginable. Congratulations, Daniel Snyder. Apparently producing one winner every six movies is satisfactory for Cruise going forward. Hope he, his disheveled fiancee and fake daughter are happy.

Tom Cruise was bashed (newsworthy, we know) last week in Australia, where he was named winner of the "Celebrity Ernie Award" for a supposedly sexist comment that award organizers claim he made. Only he didn't.

The comment in question, which was allegedly made when fiancée Katie Holmes was pregnant with their possibly-fake daughter, Suri Cruise (now between three and four months old if she is in fact alive):

"I've got Katie tucked away so no one will get to us until my child is born," Cruise said (no, he didn't).

The quote was named "worst derogatory public statement" by nearly 400 of Australia's most powerful women who gathered in the New South Wales state parliament last week. But according to Cruise's rep, the actor, who was in the news last week after being fired by Paramount, did not utter those words or make any such remarks to that effect.

"The comments that they have attributed to him are completely fabricated," his representative said. "Anyone who knows him knows that he is a complete gentleman and would never ever say such a thing... He has the utmost respect for women."

Research shows that, indeed, Cruise never made such a statement.

"His mother, his sisters, Kate and his children are the most important things in the world to him. Women have always played a positive and important role in who he is," his rep added.

How nice that TomKat respects women. The Ernie Awards, now in their 14th year, were named after a trade union leader called Ernie whose union members included sheep shearers. He once said: "Women aren't welcome in the shearing sheds. They're only after the sex."

We've seen the motivational words of Kate Bosworth, Lindsay Lohan et al., and found ourselves deeply touched by their wisdom. But these two ultra-thin vixens aren't the only celebs with inspiring stories from which our souls can derive strength.

While getting the pink slip from your movie company after pissing off the boss' wife doesn't make for a good week, you won't see any hangdog expressions on Tom Cruise. Oh no. Behold, Tom in all his glory, his relentless energy and indomitable shining through in spite of his obvious mental handicap. It's really quite moving.

Tom Cruise clearly displeased Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone enough to get his ass axed this week, but he evidently also committed one of the biggest cardinal sins for any employee -- pissing off the boss' wife!

According to TMZ.com, Paula Fortunato was incensed over one of Cruise's many rants, telling her honcho husband that the actor is a "putz," and that she intended on boycotting Cruise's projects.

Indeed, the New York Post notes, one of Redstone's justifications for severing ties with the Scientology obsessed star was that his behavior had alienated female fans. One of those fans, evidently, was Fortunato, a former teacher almost 40 years Redstone's junior who married the mogul in 2003.

She was outraged by Cruise's inexplicable digs at Brooke Shields, and told her husband that she would never "see another Tom Cruise movie again!"

Cruise has received some support, however, from what might seem an unlikely source -- Matt Lauer. Despite his personal association with of Tom's famous rants, the Today host came to Cruise's defense this week, saying his views aren't justification for his dismissal.

"You know what, I have to say something. You talk about erratic behavior and things like that affecting the box-office and yes maybe he jumped on a couch, and I was in the middle of one of those episodes here on the Today show and maybe he speaks out about Scientology and some people don't like that," Lauer said. "But what about the stars who are in and out of rehab every week? Is that any worse? And yet you find movie companies still in business with them. So, this is all a strange world we live in."

We've come across some pics of the newly-unemployed Tom Cruise and brainwashed, formerly hot fiancee Katie Holmes from their recent outing to Maestro's steakhouse. Nice work to whoever shot these... but you might want to turn the red-eye reduction feature on next time. Just a tip from the Gossip's photo editor.

That's not all. We've also come across some images from the InStyle party recently attended by Holmes... and her Scientology handler. Not clear if the handler is pictured here... but Holmes is. And she doesn't look good. Somebody save Katie!

Tom Cruise is breaking up!

With Paramount Pictures, that is. The nutjob and the movie company ended their 14-year production deal on Wednesday as the chairman of the studio's parent company, Viacom, took a parting shot at the movie star's off-screen behavior.

"As much as we like him personally, we thought it was wrong to renew his deal… His recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount," Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone (pictured, with insane person) told the Wall Street Journal.

According to the Washington Post, the actor's longtime partner in his movie company, Cruise/Wagner Productions, struck back at Redstone.

"Whatever remarks Mr. Redstone would make about Tom Cruise personally or as an actor have no bearing on what this business issue is," said Paula Wagner, adding that the remarks were offensive and undignified.

"There must be another agenda that the studio has in mind to take one of their greatest assets and malign him this way," she continued.

Five films starring Cruise and co-produced by his company, including the Mission: Impossible series, have generated revenues totaling $2 billion worldwide in the past decade. Wagner said his films accounted for 15 percent of the studio's overall box office bling over that period. Man, you've got to be pretty nuts to blow a deal that good!

Moreover, Wagner insisted that she and Cruise chose to leave Paramount.

"We, in fact, made a decision not to continue our relationship with Paramount Pictures," she said, adding that they plan to start a new venture financed by a private equity fund of $100 million. Whatever that means.

Viacom and Paramount declined further comment. The war of words between Redstone and Wagner marked a bitter end to one of the most lucrative production alliances between a major Hollywood studio and an A-list star, and it followed other signs that Cruise's stature had been damaged by one faux pas after another.

From his couch-hopping profession of love for Katie Holmes last year on The Oprah Winfrey Show to his strident denunciations of psychiatry and refusal to acknowledge that his daughter, Suri Cruise, does not exist, Tom hasn't been in the news for many positive things.

It goes beyond Oprah. A USA Today poll found that Cruise's star power has dimmed considerably, with more than half of those surveyed registering an "unfavorable" opinion of the actor. Many cited his off-screen behavior during the past year, including his public discussions of his faith in Scientology and his blunt criticism of actress Brooke Shields.

The departure of Cruise/Wagner from Paramount comes as all the studios are taking new measures to curb expenses in the face of escalating production and marketing costs and slumping growth in DVD revenues.

Cruise's latest film, Mission: Impossible III, amassed $393 million in ticket sales around the world, a nice sum but far less than his 2005 release from Paramount, War of the Worlds, which topped $590 million globally.

Although the general public is now fully aware (you're welcome!) to the bizarre behavior of one Tom Cruise, the late baseball great Joe DiMaggio may have been one of the first to know.

A recent report says that in the mid-1990s, the actor followed Joltin' Joe all over the place, spooking him and nearly prompting him to call the cops.

According to TMZ.com and Rush & Molloy, the insane one would show up uninvited at baseball-signing shows and wait for DiMaggio to appear, and even waited outside a restaurant for him once for three hours. But the Yankee Clipper wasn't impressed, and instead referred to Cruise as "a short little guy" who "scared him a little."

"This guy is following me around everywhere I go. Next time, I'm going to call the cops," DiMaggio is quoted as saying.

Cruise's representatives didn't respond to the story (nor have they offered any proof that baby daughter Suri Cruise is real -- vote in our official poll). It's perfectly possible, in his defense, that Tom was trying to get DiMaggio's life story made into a film, as the actor has been known to go to extreme lengths to get projects underway.

Reportedly, he showed up motorcycle in the middle of the night at director JJ Abrams' house to convince him to direct Mission: Impossible 3.

Crazy Hollywood power couple Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes helped comfort a pair of shaken accident victims Saturday night, People reports.

A representative for the couple confirms that Cruise, 44, and Holmes, 27, traveled to Salt Lake City, Utah, for an exhibition soccer game, where their friend David Beckham and his team, Real Madrid, beat Real Salt Lake 2-0. On the way back from the airport, the couple pulled over on the 101 Freeway in Los Angeles to come to the aid of a couple who had apparently just been in a car accident.

The engaged pair and possible parents of 4-month-old daughter Suri Cruise checked to make sure the passengers, Jon Henningsen and his wife, were not seriously injured, then waited with them until police and fire department personnel arrived on the scene.

The Gossip just has two questions:

• Who was the PR genius who concocted this one? If you want to deflect the attention away from the Suri mystery, people, at least make up something like Tom diving off a pier to save a drowning child.
• How is Tom Cruise friends with David Beckham? He plays soccer! In Europe! Why does no one explain these things!?