Tuesday October 31, 2006
Viacom cryptkeeper Sumner Redstone isn’t finished with Tom Cruise, 44. After unceremoniously dumping the couch-vaulting actor from Paramount Studios in August, Redstone goes on the record in the December Vanity Fair to explain his decision.
"He was embarrassing the studio. And he was costing us a lot of money," the mouthy Viacom chief tells the magazine in an excerpt obtained by Page Six.
Redstone, 83, admits it was his better and less aged half, Paula, 47, who turned her husband against Cruise, convincing Redstone to sever his professional relationship with the actor.
"Paula, like women everywhere, had come to hate him. The truth of the matter is, I did listen to her . . ." Redstone says. "His behavior was entirely unacceptable to Paula and to the rest of the world. He just didn't turn one [woman] off. He turned off all women, and a lot of men."
Redstone says that Cruise's off-color antics – slamming psychiatry, firing longtime publicist Pat Kingsly, and mounting Oprah Winfrey’s couch – combined to contribute to his professional demise: "When did I decide [to fire him]? I don't know. When he was on the Today show? When he was jumping on a couch at 'Oprah'? He changed his handler, you know, to his sister [LeAnne Devette] - not a good idea."
Redstone estimates that Cruise's bizarre behavior cost Paramount "$100 million, $150 million on Mission: Impossible III. It was the best picture of the three, and it did the worst."
The experience, according to Redstone, was a good lesson for Hollywood: "The explosion was good. It sent a message to the rest of the world that the time of the big star getting all this money is over. And it is! I would like to think that what I did, or what we did, has had a salutary effect on the rest of the industry."
Talk to Us: Do you think Cruise can get his career mo-jo back?
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