WWW- VIACOM Chairman Sumner Redstone’s decision to cancel Tom Cruise’s deal with Paramount Pictures was bolstered by his belief that the fanatical Scientologist’s off-screen behavior had permanently turned off his female fans.
And one of those female fans happens to be Redstone’s wife, Paula Fortunato.
According to an insider, Fortunato, a former school teacher, was “incensed” by Cruise’s criticism of Brooke Shields, who wrote about how prescription drugs relieved her postpartum depression. “Here is a woman – and I care about Brooke Shields because she is an incredibly talented woman – where has her career gone?” Cruise ranted on national television.
“These drugs are dangerous. I have actually helped people come off them. When you talk about postpartum depression, you can take people today, women, and what you do is, you use vitamins.”
Our source says Fortunato told her powerful husband, “I never want to see another Tom Cruise movie again!”
Viacom spokesman Carl Folta said, “It is true that Mrs. Redstone disagrees with Tom Cruise’s views, but she and Mr. Redstone see every Paramount film.”
Meanwhile, Cruise has been busier pushing Scientology than anyone knew. According to a just-declassified State Department schedule, Cruise visited then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage on June 13, 2003, just an hour after Armitage had met with Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward. (It’s speculated that Armitage outed Valerie Plame as a CIA spy at that meeting.)
Cruise was accompanied by Tom Davis, head of the L.A. Celebrity Center for Scientology, and Kurt Weiland, Scientology’s veep of communications.
What was discussed? “Only Armitage can answer that question, and he’s no longer here,” a State Department spokesman told us. E-mails to Armitage and Cruise’s rep weren’t answered, nor was a call to Scientology headquarters.
A year earlier, the “Mission: Impossible” star met with the U.S. ambassador to Germany to lend his support to the failed campaign to have Scientology recognized as an official religion there.