Katie Drops $14M in NYC

This can only lead to bad things...

(NEWSER) - Raise your hand if you think Suri Cruise is going to end up worse than Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian combined. The latest tale of extravagance in the 5-year-old’s life: Parents Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes paid $5,000 for exclusive use of a VIP-like area at New York’s Rockefeller Center ice skating rink (skaters usually pay $75 to get access to the area ... which they have to share). As if that wasn’t enough, a source tells the New York Daily News the family also had gourmet hot chocolate and treats made by "Mr. Chocolate" himself delivered “especially for Suri,” because God forbid she be subjected to normal ice skating rink snacks. Click to be further horrified by the $130,000 worth of Christmas gifts the tot is asking Santa for. More»

Apparently there's a lot of clay, and perhaps some grade inflation to boot

(NEWSER) - They grow up so fast: Suri Cruise’s first day of school—Scientology-flavored school—was last week. So what’s it like at the New Village Leadership Academy in Calabasas, California, which uses L. Ron Hubbard’s “study technology” educational system? Well, for one thing, there’s a lot of clay. Sculpting is apparently big at schools like this, Slate explains, because Hubbard said students are frustrated when they have no access to “mass,” or the physical presence of whatever object they’re studying. According to the official study technology website, without mass students feel, among other things, “sort of spinny” and “squashed.” Therefore, Suri will probably be encouraged to use clay to sculpt concepts she’s learning about. More»

Former friends fell out after SNL skit teasing Holmes

(NEWSER) - Thanks to Anne Hathaway, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes may not be gracing the world with their presence at the Academy Awards. They’re considering a boycott because they’re displeased with Oscars co-host Hathaway for mocking Holmes during her stint on Saturday Night Live in November. “They used to be friends,” a source tells the Daily Mail (Cruise and Holmes even, oddly enough, took Hathaway to a Tina Turner concert to cheer her up after her bad break-up ), but the SNL incident “left a sour taste.” Click for more, or to see the SNL skit. More»

Holmes calls hubby 'an incredible human being'

(NEWSER) - Katie Holmes never really went away, unless you count her 2008 stint on Broadway , but she's coming back nonetheless. The actress, who just completed four films and is shooting her role as Jackie Kennedy for a History Channel miniseries, talks to New York about her family:

• On Suri the fashionista: "She picks out all of her own clothes and has since she was 1½"—and sometimes Katie's, too. "I had this beautiful red gown and these royal-blue shoes that I wasn’t planning on wearing, but Suri made me put them on and so I was like, 'Okay, I trust you.'"

Yet she looks like an Amazon next to most others

(NEWSER) - Tom Cruise may wear the pants in his relationship with Katie Holmes, but he also likely wears the heels, reports the New York Daily News in tackling what is surely one of the most important questions of our time: How is it that Holmes, who towered over Daniel Radcliffe at the Tony Awards, always seems to be at eye level with her much-shorter hubby? A few possibilities:

• Shoe lifts: Cruise—who is 5-foot-7 to his wife’s 5-foot-9—has been rumored to wear lifts ever since he was married to 5-foot-11 Nicole Kidman.