While that scandal lay in the future, Nicole was sufficiently aware of Pellicano’s bullying reputation to ask her lawyer Bill Beslow, a New Yorker who had handled divorces for Mia Farrow, Tatum O’Neal, and Sarah, the Duchess of York, for advice. He recommended that she bring in her own man to handle countermeasures. So it was that Richard DiSabatino, a Hollywood private eye who first got into the business thanks to Nicole’s friend Robert De Niro, found himself sitting in her cool, elegant study while her lawyer idly fingered a jazz tune on the grand piano in the sitting room. Dressed simply in jeans and an oversized sweater, Nicole looked the picture of misery, her face porcelain white, her eyes red-rimmed with crying. “She looked terrible,” he recalls. “This was not an act, and it was clear that the breakup had hit her hard.” As she was talking, she would break down in tears, the actress constantly rubbing her injured knee. Her mood was bleak and pessimistic. “I feel so vulnerable,” she told him plaintively. “People want to stop me from continuing what little career I have.”
After listening to her tale of woe, he explained that he would be responsible for protecting her, making sure her phones could not be tapped, and ensuring that she only dealt with people she knew and trusted. She was, however, insistent that they not investigate her husband, even though DiSabatino had contacts at the Carlyle Hotel in New York, where Penélope Cruz stayed during the filming of Vanilla Sky before Tom filed for divorce.
As he left her home at Pacific Palisades, DiSabatino realized that he was backing the wrong horse, that Hollywood would automatically side with her powerful husband. Nevertheless, his job was now to protect his vulnerable client. On a subsequent visit he swept her phones and installed an encryption device so that she couldn’t be wiretapped. “We tried to keep one step ahead,” he recalls. Realizing that Pellicano was a resourceful opponent, however, Nicole would say things during phone conversations with friends and family like “Tom, are you listening?” or “Am I saying what you want me to say, Tom?”
For all her bravado, this was a woman on the edge. She was bruised, angry, but above all bewildered, obsessed with the reasons behind Tom’s rapid exit from her life. Not only had she been informed by an associate that the marriage was over, but when she called him in January to ask him why, all he would say was, “You know why.” He repeated his mantra even when she yelled at him: “You fucking bastard, don’t you realize I’m pregnant?” She pleaded with DiSabatino to find out why her husband had left her, adamant that he was the father of her child. DiSabatino was blunt, telling her that if Tom wasn’t going to tell his own wife, he had no chance even if he tied him down and tortured him. “Even then you only have a fifty-fifty chance of success of getting information out of Tom,” he said.
What concerned him most was the steady drip, drip of insinuation and gossip in the media about his client. When negative stories about Nicole started appearing in the National Enquirer, Pellicano’s tabloid of choice, he realized that the gloves were well and truly off. One story suggested that Tom left because he could no longer take Nicole’s “eternal moaning,” while others speculated about the possible identity of the baby’s father—expanding the roll call from the actors she knew to her knee surgeon, Neal ElAttrache, and her driver Dave Garris. Certainly, Garris acted like much more than her driver, behaving with the confident air of the man about the house. She seemed to enjoy the company of a man who treated her like a woman rather than a star.
With Pellicano digging for dirt, DiSabatino needed to know if there were any skeletons in his client’s sexual cupboard. He sat her down and asked Nicole point-blank if she had been fooling around with another man. “She looked me in the eyes and said absolutely not,” he recalls. She admitted that the only person who came close to any type of inappropriate relationship during their marriage was the actor Iain Glen and that “Tom had known all about it.”
Meanwhile a parade of men—and often their partners—publicly denied any romantic attachment to the Australian star. A persistent rumor concerned her Moulin Rouge costar, Ewan McGregor. “I can’t believe people are saying there was something going on between us,” Nicole said. “Ewan is a lovely guy and he’s a friend. We spent a long time on Moulin Rouge. During all that time Ewan’s wife, Eve, was there and she’s a mate of mine. It’s absolutely crazy.”
Another candidate was Nicole’s close friend Australian actor Russell Crowe, because Tom had reportedly been angry to discover a series of e-mails between them. When Iain Glen offered her a shoulder to cry on, the gossips went into overdrive, causing his then wife, Susannah, to publicly exclaim, “Nicole’s an old friend of mine, too. Nothing can be read into Iain speaking to her. It’s something I approve of. He’s a friend of hers and so it’s all positively okay.”
Of more interest to Hollywood insiders was her friendship with orthopedic surgeon Neal ElAttrache. ElAttrache was married to actress Tricia Flavin, whose sister Jennifer was Sylvester Stallone’s wife, and had a thriving practice treating athletes and celebrities at the Kerlan-Jobe Clinic. After tearing her cartilage during the filming of Moulin Rouge, Nicole began treatment at the clinic in May 2000, returning often for physical therapy. There were rumors all over Hollywood that ElAttrache had become overly friendly with the injured actress. When the gossip reached the ears of Sylvester Stallone, he was concerned that a vengeful Tom Cruise might target the aging actor and destroy what was left of his career.
As a result, Jackie Stallone, Sylvester’s formidable eighty-year-old mother, called an Italian family “sit-down” to get to the heart of the matter. According to one insider, it was only after two of these sit-downs that Neal ElAttrache was able to calm the fears of the Stallone clan. Stallone later confirmed that his brother-in-law had struck up a friendship with Nicole during treatment and had stayed in touch with her afterward. He told journalist Mitchell Fink, “I sat down with him and I said, ‘Look, this story is breaking all over the place, you gotta come clean with me. Did anything happen we should know about?’ And he said no. Everything was fine and clean.”
There was a twist in this tale. In March 2001, Stallone contacted journalist and former NYPD detective John Connolly, who had just published an article in Premiere magazine about allegations of sexual harassment against Arnold Schwarzenegger, now governor of California. Stallone, who loathes the former bodybuilder, was eager to hear more unpublished scuttlebutt about Schwarzenegger and offered inside information on his brother-in-law’s friendship with Nicole Kidman in exchange. “It didn’t come off,” says Connolly. “It was all getting too crazy and I didn’t want to get stuck in the middle.”
The debate about the father of Nicole’s child soon became academic. On March 16 she was rushed to the Iris Cantor–UCLA Women’s Health Center, suffering from heavy bleeding and sharp abdominal pains similar to those she had experienced with her ectopic pregnancy a decade earlier. Doctors told her that she was about three months pregnant but had miscarried; in fact, without Nicole realizing it, the fetus had died several weeks earlier. While her loyal driver, Dave Garris, waited in the wings, Nicole phoned Tom to break the news. He sent flowers but did not visit her in the hospital.
Given the strain and her medical history, the miscarriage came as no surprise. “We have a woman who is pregnant, with knee problems and who has been told her career is over in Hollywood,” observed DiSabatino. “Lo and behold, she has a miscarriage. I can only believe it was because she was so upset. She wanted a child. She loves children.” Shrewdly, he advised her to save some of the fetal tissue in case DNA tests were ever needed to prove the baby’s paternity. A story was leaked to the National Enquirer about her decision to store the DNA.
It was a brilliant move, putting Tom’s camp in a no-win position. In order for Tom to refute Nicole’s version of events, he would have to take her to court to prove that the “World’s Sexiest Man” was not the father of his wife’s child. Even Pellicano, who had a soft spot for Nicole even though he was working against her, acknowledged that Tom had been outmaneuvered.
/> While Nicole was in the hospital, the religion at the heart of the rift between the couple laid its claim to her estranged husband. On March 18, news organizations falsely reported that the Hollywood actor had severed his fifteen-year association with Scientology, quoting a spokesman as saying that he had left for “personal reasons,” but had given them a generous goodwill donation. Within twenty-four hours, Tom’s lawyer Bert Fields was on the warpath, denying that Tom had left the Church of Scientology or had any intention of doing so. This rapid response was in keeping with previous stories that dared to suggest a weakening of his ties with the faith that completely cocooned him.
Indeed, as Nicole pulled away from Scientology, Tom was becoming more and more wedded to his belief in L. Ron Hubbard’s doctrine. As actress Naomi Watts, one of Nicole’s closest friends, said, “Tom has always been far more into Scientology than Nicole. He is somewhat of a fanatic; Nicole never wanted to go down that road.” Nicole’s waning enthusiasm for Scientology, combined with her ongoing Roman Catholic faith, sowed the seeds for conflict with her husband. By turning her back on Scientology, she was in effect turning her back on her husband. She had become a Potential Trouble Source, tainted by association by her return to Catholicism as well as being the daughter of a psychiatrist.
While Hollywood was rather shocked at Tom’s abrupt and clinical dismissal of his wife, his behavior came as no surprise to former Scientologists. Peter Alexander, onetime vice president of Universal Studios, was working on his computer in the same room as his wife, Jolie, when a message came up on his screen saying that she wanted a divorce because he was no longer as committed to Scientology as she was. Then she promptly packed up their three children and drove out of his life. Again, when Karen Pressley decided to leave Scientology and reconnect with her Christian faith, she knew that her marriage was doomed. Similarly, actor Parker Stevenson acknowledged the role of Scientology in his 1997 split from Kirstie Alley. “It doesn’t help. I’m Episcopalian, she’s a Scientologist, it’s different,” he told People magazine. That same year, actor Tom Berenger split from his Scientologist wife, Lisa, saying that his wife’s religious beliefs had been a factor in the breakup.
As Nicole reconnected with Catholicism, she feared that Scientology would attempt to discredit her. If she needed any reminder of the danger, a story in the National Enquirer said that Nicole had made a number of taped confessions during her Scientology auditing sessions in which “she bared her soul” and suggested that these personal details might be used against her, especially if there was a battle for custody of their children. Her desire to return to Australia and her hostility to Tom’s aim of educating their children inside Scientology made Nicole so anxious that her lawyer, Bill Beslow, asked advice from a former high-ranking Scientologist. He recalls: “Nicole’s lawyer called me and said it was a very difficult situation, but all Nicole wants is the kids. He said, Is there anything you can tell me that would help this situation? At this point Nicole hated Scientology but was concerned for the kids. Her mission was to sneak them away from Scientology as much as possible. She did not want to ruin her relationship with them. I told the lawyer if she wants to stay with the children she will have to be quiet and not speak out about Scientology.”
If run-of-the-mill celebrity Scientologists were forced to choose between their faith and their relationships, it was even more important for a poster boy like Tom Cruise to have a partner who was as committed to his beliefs as he was. At first glance, Penélope Cruz, who was raised in a poor but devoutly Catholic family in Madrid, did not fit the bill. Indeed, when she met and interviewed Mother Teresa of Calcutta during the 1990s, she was so inspired by her work with the homeless that she started her own charity, the Sabera Foundation, to help tuberculosis sufferers in India.
At the same time, Cruz was open to other faiths and religion. During her six-year romance with Mexican singer Nacho Cano, she was introduced to Buddhism, on one occasion meeting the Dalai Lama during a trip to Nepal. Shortly before meeting Tom in 2000, she described her attitude to faith: “I was raised as a Catholic, but I believe in God in my own way and I pray in my own way and I respect all kinds of philosophies. The one philosophy or religion that I find I am most close to is the Buddhist one.”
Scientology likes to market itself, falsely, as an “applied religion,” able to coexist with other faiths, which would have appealed to the free-spirited Ms. Cruz. In the early days of their romance, Tom quietly took her to his local hangout, the Hollywood Celebrity Centre, giving her the full tour, complete with glossy brochures and books by L. Ron Hubbard. It was not long before she was spending days at the CC, reportedly up to seven hours at a time, immersing herself in basic Scientology courses.
Soon the red roses and love notes that he had once showered on Nicole started arriving for Penélope, who much preferred his thoughtful, seemingly spontaneous gestures to lavish presents of jewelry. “Penelope is someone to whom gifts don’t mean a lot,” Tom said later. “She doesn’t really want jewelry or big gifts. She likes written notes and a letter or a phone call at a particular time while she’s away.”
As in the early days of his romance with Nicole, Tom kept his new love in the background until his divorce was finalized. So when Tom arrived at the Oscar ceremony in March 2001, he did not sit with Penélope. Both were presenting prizes, Tom for Best Director and Penélope for Best Achievement in Costume Design, while Nicole was notably absent. Even though Tom and Penélope tried to disguise their burgeoning relationship, there was no hiding the hostility between Nicole and the Spanish actress when they were photographed for a “Legends of Hollywood” story in Vanity Fair. For the cover, photographer Annie Leibovitz shot a group portrait that included Nicole, Sophia Loren, Meryl Streep, Catherine Deneuve, Cate Blanchett, Chloë Sevigny, and, incongruously, Penélope Cruz, who had scarcely a Hollywood movie to her name. That she was now represented by Tom’s publicist, Pat Kingsley, and under his management umbrella, CAA, might just have worked in her favor. Significantly, Leibovitz placed the rivals, Nicole looking icy and haughty and Penélope looking scared, in opposite corners of the photo.
If including the relatively unknown Penélope in the photo shoot was a not-so-subtle attempt by Tom’s camp to intimidate and humiliate Nicole, their plan was effective. By April, Nicole, still weak from her miscarriage and complaining about her injured knee and a stalker who was hounding her, was sufficiently softened up by Tom’s media and legal campaign that she was ready to throw in the towel. According to DiSabatino, “Nicole was talking about settling. Tom gave her a figure that was half of what she eventually got. She called me over to the house and said she was going to settle. I begged with her not to settle for that price—if she hung in there she would get so much more. But she said her knees were bothering her and she wanted to move on with her life.” In the end, wiser counsels prevailed and she decided to wait.
Even so, in early May she was telling Oprah Winfrey that her life was “a nightmare . . . You pretend that you’re fine and there’s days when you’re great and there’s days when you’re not great.” She still didn’t understand why Tom had left her. When the cameras stopped turning after an interview on the Today show, Katie Couric quietly asked her about the split. “I don’t know why, I don’t know why,” Nicole told her. She continued to be overwrought when she attended the opening of Moulin Rouge at the Cannes Film Festival a few days later. Nicole, who suffers from panic attacks, was mobbed by overenthusiastic crowds, later confessing that it was the most frightening moment of her life. Vulnerable and distraught, she felt unable to face the media at the traditional press conference. Seeing his lead actress fading before his eyes, director Baz Luhrmann told her, “Get back up on that horse and be Nicole Kidman.” She took his advice, dancing the night away with Ewan McGregor and DJ Fatboy Slim.
As Nicole flew to London to prepare for her role as author Virginia Woolf in The Hours, Tom was squaring up for another battle—this time with his old foes in the media. As writer Richard Goldste
in noted, “Tom Cruise sues the way Robert Downey Jr. violates his parole. Downey can’t pass up a snort and Cruise can’t resist a tort.” As he had spent many hours—and thousands of dollars—on the phone with his lawyer Bert Fields, asking for advice on the divorce, he had no hesitation in calling Fields when French gossip magazine Acustar reported in May 2001 that Tom had had a relationship with gay porn star and erotic wrestler Kyle Bradford, real name Chad Slater. Slater was slapped with a $100 million lawsuit, Fields stating, “There is not a germ of truth to this vicious, self-promoting story. While Tom Cruise thoroughly respects others’ right to follow their own sexual preference, he is not homosexual and had no relationship of any kind with Kyle Bradford [Chad Slater] and does not even know him.” Even though Slater denied making the comments and Acustar printed a retraction, the gay rumors just kept circulating.
It was turning into a minor cottage industry, not because there was any merit in the stories but because, for those who inhabit Hollywood’s underbelly, there was money in exploiting Tom’s itchy legal finger, particularly his sensitivity to gay slurs. So it was that in June 2001, gay porn star Big Red—“They don’t call me Big Red just because of my freckled face and carrot top”—found himself sitting in the office of Tony Pellicano with fellow private eye and sometimes gay porn producer Paul Barresi. Barresi, who billed himself as Pellicano’s enforcer, had earned notoriety in 1990 by claiming to have had an affair with actor and prominent Scientologist John Travolta. Big Red, aka Nathan Hamilton, told the two detectives an elaborate story about his paid dalliances with some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, including Tom Cruise. Barresi had already tried to sell Hamilton’s account to the National Enquirer, but the tabloid had found the porn star’s preposterous story too convoluted and contradictory.
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