Buzz Watch: Sumner Redstone Wants to Be Friends with Tom Cruise Again

Authored by Jay Baage on March 2, 2007 - 2:35pm.

Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone wants to be friends with Tom Cruise again and says that he never fired him from Paramount to People Magazine: "What happened was, I just gave an interview to the Wall Street Journal. In the course of it, they asked me what was going on. I said, you know, he would no longer be in the lot. They treated that like I was firing him. I didn't fire him! I had nothing to do with it. But they treated it explosively. And I didn't like it."

Redstone's new comments are in contradiction to the tone he used when talking about the star actor this summer. Redstone made headlines in August when he criticized Cruise's behavior in the Wall Street Journal after revealing that the studio had ended its 14-year partnership with Cruise's production company: "We don't think that someone who effectuates creative suicide and costs the company revenue should be on the lot," Redstone told the newspaper. "His recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount."

Cruise's lawyer, Burt Fields, has told the New York Times that Redstone's comments about Cruise were "disgusting" and suggesting that Redstone, who is 83, had "lost it completely, or he's been given breathtakingly bad advice." It seems that after the fact that Cruise signed a deal with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to resurrect the United Artists movie studio, Redstone is trying some damage control: "I haven't talked with him recently," Redstone told People at Thursday's Zodiac premiere in Hollywood. "But who knows, I look forward to seeing him again. He's a great, great actor – one of the best. He was a great friend. And I look forward to being his friend again."

What's going on here? Your guess is as good as mine.

Joakim Baage

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Comments

I told you so...

Submitted by Mike S (not verified) on March 2, 2007 - 3:34pm.

The original story that Sumner fired Tom never made any sense to me. In fact, I blogged about it and a couple months later, posted an update.

It was about money and stock price and damage control, i.e., a preemptive strike, as Tom was set to leave after negotiations were going nowhere. It appears that Mr. Redstone has had a change of heart and realizes it wasn't okay to publicly slam one of the best actors and humanitarians alive today. It's refreshing to see some truth come out about this.