Goodbye Tom Cruise...

Paramount's dumping of Cruise didn't come as a surprise to everyone. According to Hollywood insiders, a celebrity apocalypse of this magnitude has been a long time coming and would have happened even if Cruise hadn't used Oprah Winfrey's sofa as a trampoline, lost his temper during an interview about Brooke Shields's medication, or fathered the baby of Katie Holmes. Directors, producers and screenwriters alike say that actors have become so grotesquely overpaid in relation to the profitability of modern films that something radical had to be done. How, they ask, could Cruise expect to keep his Paramount retainer of up to $US10million a year - to cover overheads such as office rent, jet fuel and salaries for his most trusted aides - at a time when studios can barely cover their marketing bills? (In sharp contrast to Cruise's production deal with Paramount, Brad Pitt's company, Plan B, reportedly gets only $US2million a year from the same studio, with a $US500,000 discretionary fund to develop ideas. Cruise's discretionary fund was about 12 times that size.)

The bad feeling between studios and actors has been building all northern summer as panic over invisible profit margins continues to take hold. In June, Paramount halted the production of Believe It or Not, a Jim Carrey project with a budget of $US150million. Then came a leaked memo from Morgan Creek Productions to Lindsay Lohan, the hard-partying actor who was starring in a film called Georgia Rule. "To date your actions have been discourteous, irresponsible and unprofessional," said the missive. "You have acted like a spoilt child." Days later, Walt Disney cancelled a Mel Gibson television miniseries after a transcript of the actor's drunken rant against Jews was published online.

In a business not exactly known for its moral bravery, these have been remarkable developments ("Industry flirtation with honesty puts stars on alert," read Thursday's headline in the Los Angeles Times). As if all this wasn't bad enough for actors' reputations, dozens of movie budgets were recently leaked to the Smoking Gun website. One of the 80-page spreadsheets disclosed that Bruce Willis had received $US20million to star in M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable plus a $US1.5million package of on-set extras, including masseuse, mobile gym, trainer, bodyguard and private jet charters.

JANET JACKSON DENIES HAVING CHILDREN

Janet Jackson denied having any children that she knows of, calling the allegations that she have one as "false".The famously secretive pop star broke her silence on assertions by her former brother-in-law that she had a secret 18-year-old daughter. "I do not have a child, and all allegations saying so are false," Jackson said in a brief statement.

Jackson did not mention ex-husband James DeBarge. She didn't have to--Young DeBarge, one of James DeBarge's brothers, did that himself last Friday during an interview on New York City's WQHT-FM ("Hot 97"). Young DeBarge said on the air that his brother and Jackson, who were briefly married from 1984 to 1985, had a baby together.

The child, named Renee, was raised by Jackson's eldest sister, Rebbie, he said. When not dishing on family gossip, Young DeBarge was said to be promoting an upcoming album. Jackson, meanwhile, reportedly was moving on to more pressing matters--namely, trying to get a stalkerazzi video of her backyard sunbathing routine off the Internet, MSNBC.com said.