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Tom Cruise’s son Connor has been dropped by his DJ agent following a spat over a Super Bowl text judged to be homophobic.
The 17-year-old DJ was not happy that the New York Giants beat the New England Patriots. His agent, Todd Krim, teased Cruise with a tweet after the game, writing, “Sorry @TheConnorCruise maybe next year!!!”
Apparently, it was too soon to be talking trash to the die-hard Pats fan. According to an e-mail forwarded to publicists by Krim, Cruise texted him back, saying, “That was a gay ass f***ing tweet . . . U don’t say sh** like that about my team the second they lose. Low.”
When Krim — who heads entertainment/charity Web site Give Back Hollywood and helped book DJ gigs for Cruise — wrote back, “Umm ok . . . Dude I was f***ing joking,” Cruise responded, “That was [bleeped]” and “Idgaf” (“I don’t give a f***]).”
Cruise and Krim were both in Indy where Cruise DJed DirecTV’s Saturday night party. [See photo above.] Krim says the Twitter tantrum ended their professional relations, while sources close to Cruise say they’d parted ways weeks ago, according to the New York Post.
On Monday, Krim e-mailed colleagues with a screen grab of Cruise’s texts, saying, “I am no longer working with Connor Cruise. In fact, I am no longer speaking with [him] . . . I refuse to be professionally (or even personally) associated with someone that engages in this sort of behavior . . . I just thought you should know who and what you’re dealing with.”
He called Cruise’s comments, “highly offensive and what I consider homophobic . . . after I jokingly tweeted about the Patriots losing.”
Krim told The Post, “I did a lot for [Connor], and he was less than respectful and appreciative . . . I made a joke, and let’s just say his reaction was not what I expected. It’s disappointing when you think someone is one way and they turn out to be another.”
Connor has since released a statement to The Post through his rep, saying, “What I texted was unacceptable. It is not a reflection of who I am and what I feel, and it certainly won’t happen again.”
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Everybody has a story. The story of Green Bay wide receiver James Jones’ early years is hard to wrap your brain around.
Homelessness started from birth and didn’t end permanently until he was 15 years old. The awful state of having no place to call his own was interrupted here and there with help from family, friends and people who would later greatly influence Jones’ life, a life filled with struggle, strides and now, true happiness.
“You never know what’s going to happen. I didn’t know I was going to make it to the NFL. But I just kept on fighting, kept pursing my dream,’’ Jones said.
James and Tamika Jones’ new baby, James Martell Lightning Jones, is eight days old when our FOX crew invades their modest Green Bay home. I have a cold so I keep my distance. I’m unable to take in all of the baby’s features, but I do see little James has a head full of beautiful, black curly hair. After some back and forth in my head I know exactly how to start the interview: fatherhood.
“Just the way I grew up, I was like when I’m a dad, the position I’m in to know this little dude doesn’t have to worry about anything for the rest of his life, it’s truly a blessing.”
Jones speaks a lot about blessings. He knows how fortunate he is to have overcome the heartbreaking childhood he lived. He talks casually, calmly about growing up in homeless shelters which almost always have a three-month-stay rule. I’m stunned to learn, that after 90 days, you have to get out and a young Jones and his mother Janet Jones were asked to leave a lot. She had trouble finding or keeping jobs.
During those times they would scrape together money for cheap hotels around San Jose when shelters weren’t available.
“The hardest times was leaving the shelter and going from hotel to hotel because some nights you’d kind of ride (buses) all night or be up all night,’’ he said.
Jones often joined his mother out on the streets begging for money, sometimes begging for food.
“There was one time we were staying in a hotel and we didn’t have food and there was this pizza spot. I don’t know what got into me. I just went into the pizza spot and just cried and pleaded that we needed some food! And the dude gave me two large pizzas for free.”
At the Homeless Shelter in San Jose for our Thanksgiving Day story, we were shown a sparse, freshly scented room that included bunk beds and a baby crib, which we were told the new occupant moving in the next day would need. Jones stayed at that very same shelter at least three times as he recalled. His old room is now an office.
“He was a runner,” 16-year shelter worker Judy Vargas remembers. She’s short so we have to stand her on a box to fit her in the camera frame with me.
“I was forever running after him, saying ‘James, you need to be by your mother. You’re supposed to be supervised.’ He was always just a little antsy,” Vargas said.
Jones never complained about his life openly, but he did wonder about it, he somewhat reluctantly admitted to me.
“There were times when you don’t want to ask why, but you do ask why,” Jones said. “You look at yourself like, I’m a good kid. Why does this kid have that? Or why does this have that?”
I ask Jones what’s the one possession he treasured as a little boy, thinking it was a toy, a pair of shoes maybe, an article of clothing. The answer leaves me with a large lump in my throat and I have to look away.
“It had to be my mother,’’ he said. “I had opportunities to stay with my grandma at a young age, go stay with my dad. He was living in Fresno at the time. Whatever mama went through, whatever was gonna happen, I was gonna be with her. No matter where we were, under a bridge or something, I felt I was safe.”
Jones found safety in football, too. One day he was playing with some boys. Their dad, Marion Larrea, a Pop Warner coach, saw something special in this strongly built kid. Soon Jones was a part of the family, with Larrea in role of father figure and mentor. Jones was asked along on family vacations and spent weeks at a time at the Larrea home.
“I may have been his angel, but he brought a lot of happiness to my life, too,” said Larrea, who bought Jones his first pair of cleats. “I think of him as a son still to this day. He’s done a lot for me.”
“I was eight years old. He saw me playing, and he was ‘you need to be playing football,’ ” said Jones. “I told him that I would love to. But my mother didn’t have the money for me to play football.”
Larrea made sure Jones’ fees were paid and a bond was formed that had nothing to do with money. Two decades later Jones would give Larrea the valuable jersey he played in when the Packers won the 2010 Super Bowl.
“He said it since he was five years old, that he was going to go to the NFL and he did it,” she said.
“He loves his parents. He does not look to them or blame them for anything that happened,’’ his wife Tamika said. “He looks at his journey and everything that happened for a reason.”
After a move to Sacramento, a miserable 15-year-old James Jones had been through enough. Craving normalcy, he did something he didn’t think he’d ever do. He left his mother’s side and the transient lifestyle they’d been living for the bulk of his life. After a call to his grandmother Bernice, he was on a bus back to San Jose to live under the rules of her strictly run home.
“I was able to go to the same high school for all four years, be stable over there,’’ Jones said. “I knew that when I left school, I’d be going home. I’d have some food there.”
Janet Jones came back, too. She found a job and got an apartment.
“My mom was at every game — basketball, football game,’’ he said. “It was just good to be stable”
After four years of college football at San Jose State, Jones got a dream-come-true phone call from the Green Bay Packers in the third round of the 2007 NFL Draft.
“Man, that almost brings tears to my eyes just to be able to provide for her, bless her with anything she needs,” he said. “She doesn’t have to worry about nothing. She has a roof over her head, she doesn’t have to worry about moving, or to worry about three-month notice. That’s the best feeling in the world.”
Jones and his wife steer us to the Milwaukee Rescue Mission to meet the people who run it and some of the spirited students who attend the school. It’s a place near and dear to them, as the Jones family are frequent visitors and generous to the kids of the facility, a place that relies on fund-raising to keep its doors open and is in constant need of money and various supplies.
We’re introduced to a young girl named Destiny Battle, who was one of the recipients of James and Tamika’s “lovejones4kids” foundation that grants wishes to kids. Ten-year-old Destiny didn’t want anything for herself, but a gift for her disabled mother instead.
“Her birthday passed and she only got four presents and I wanted to get her something,” said the 5th grader. “I wanted to get her a necklace.”
Wish fulfilled.
Sometimes we can all take things for granted. Jones is very sensitive sometimes about a perceived lack of gratitude in whatever form it takes.
“You walk into Lambeau Field and you got omelets, you got pancakes, you got all you can eat, everything,’’ Jones said. “And every once in a while you’ll hear somebody say, ‘damn, we got the same stuff every day.’ I just thought back to the kids at the homeless shelter, they wished they could wake up to some pancakes. I truly believe that if I didn’t go through what I went through, I probably wouldn’t be sitting here today because it made me a strong person.”
He’s also a kind person. A half-smile doesn’t leave his face, even when he tells the worst of his life story. I ask him why he even wants to dredge this up, relive the worst days of his life or recount days when he watched his mom swallow her pride to ask a stranger for money, or beg an estranged family member to take them in for a week.
What does he want people to know about homelessness, especially where children are concerned?
“When you’re in there you’re lonely,” he said. “I just like telling my story because there’s kids in the homeless shelter and it’s going to be hard to make it out, but you can do it. I would fight to get out because of the circumstances I was in. And I knew I got to fight because I want to get my mom out of there.”
He’s done that and so much more.
Mainly, James Jones with that story, has opened our eyes to the horrors and joys of life — from having no place to live as a baby to now looking down at his own newborn sleeping peacefully, safe and sound.
Is Terrell Owens crying out for help? The former football star is running out of money, no NFL teams want him and he can’t afford his child support payments. He recently asked a judge to lower his payments because he has no income. At 37, it looks like his NFL career is over. Last month, he reportedly tried to commit suicide. This isn’t the first time this has happened. Back in 2006, he overdosed on pills. Is he crying out for help? What will he do with his life? During his heyday, Owens was a locker room terror always causing controversy with the various teams he played on Eagles, 49ers, Cowboys). Now that no one wants him, he realizes he wasted good years clowning when he should have been working and making money so he could have a life outside of football.
What is going on with Pro Football Player Terrell Owens? The former Philadelphia Eagle, Dallas Cowboy and current Cincinnati Bengal had to be hospitalized last week because of a possible prescription drug overdose. The free agent NFL receiver is 37, and his NFL career looks like it’s over. Owens’ career is not doing well and he has made bad choices with his money. Did he try to commit suicide? Back in 2006, he was hospitalized and claimed it was a bad reaction to painkillers. Close friends said he tried to commit suicide by taking 35 vicodin pills.
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Real Housewives of Atlanta Star Kim Zolciak is engaged to be married to NFL Player Kroy Biermann. They had a baby last month, and now they are getting married and getting their own reality show. The new season of Real Housewives Of Atlanta debuts November 6th on the Bravo network.
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Royce Reed is out as part of The Basketball Wives. Reed was one of the stars of the Miami version, and is also the babymomma to Basketball Star Dwight Howard of the Orlando Magic. She was the pot stirrer. Reed was always getting into it with the other ladies, who only saw her as a dancer. Reed felt like it was time to go, and she has already started a career as an author.
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Hank Williams Jr. and his iconic theme song “All My Rowdy Friends” will no longer be used to open ESPN’s “Monday Night Football,” the network announced today.
The parting of ways follows an analogy Williams used involving Adolf Hitler and President Barack Obama to make a political point on the Fox News Channel.
“We have decided to part ways with Hank Williams, Jr,” ESPN said in a statement. “We appreciate his contributions over the past years. The success of Monday Night Football has always been about the games and that will continue.”
On his own website, Williams said he was the one who made the decision.
“After reading hundreds of e-mails, I have made MY decision,” he wrote. “By pulling my opening Oct 3rd, You (ESPN) stepped on the Toes of The First Amendment Freedom of Speech, so therefore Me, My Song, and All My Rowdy Friends are OUT OF HERE. It’s been a great run.”
In an interview Monday on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends,” Williams, unprompted, said of Obama’s outing on the links with House Speaker John Boehner: “It’d be like Hitler playing golf with (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu.”
Asked to clarify, Williams said, “They’re the enemy,” adding that by “they” he meant Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.
ESPN pulled Williams’ opening to Monday night’s Indianapolis-Tampa Bay game and issued a statement saying: “While Hank Williams, Jr. is not an ESPN employee, we recognize that he is closely linked to our company through the open to Monday Night Football. We are extremely disappointed with his comments, and as a result we have decided to pull the open from tonight’s telecast.”
Williams, through his publicist, said on Monday: “Some of us have strong opinions and are often misunderstood. My analogy was extreme — but it was to make a point. I was simply trying to explain how stupid it seemed to me — how ludicrous that pairing was. They’re polar opposites and it made no sense. They don’t see eye-to-eye and never will. I have always respected the office of the president.”
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A California federal judge has rejected NBA superstar Gilbert Arenas’ attempts to block VH1’s “Basketball Wives” and turned down a request to stop former fiancé Laura Govan from appearing on the show and mentioning his name, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Further, Shed Media, the producers of the show, have successfully convinced the judge to grant an anti-SLAPP motion that strikes all of Arenas’ claims as an impingement of free speech except for allegations of a publicity rights infringement. This means the judge dismisses the claim, but is allowing Arenas to file an amended complaint.
The Hollywood Reporter’s legal blogger Eriq Gardner writes: The just-released decision comes as a huge relief for VH1, which plans to debut the latest LA-based season of “Basketball Wives” on Monday. In recent months, the show has been hit with a number of lawsuits and legal warnings from various NBA players including Chris Bosh and Dwight Howard. Arenas’ lawsuit got the furthest, requiring Judge Dolly Gee to examine whether Govan’s association with a show titled “Basketball Wives” could establish a connection to Arenas’ likeness and trademark. The judge says yes – that it will be likely that Govan will discuss Arenas on the show and that the show’s raison d’etre is to spotlight female relationships with professional basketball players like Arenas. Even if the show is careful about overtly touting such a connection between Govan and Arenas, media outlets will spot it. According to the decision: “In an age of tabloid journalism and celebrity obsession, news outlets frequently uncover and publicize connections between celebrities. For example, in the run-up to the 2008 election, it was widely reported that then-Senator Obama was a distant relative of then-Vice President Cheney, though presumably neither individual sought to be associated with the other.” In sum, there’s no escaping the fact that Arenas becomes part of this show in some form.
However, mere appropriation of Arenas’ name and likeness doesn’t necessarily equate to misappropriation, writes the judge… “On the record currently before the Court, it appears that any references in BWLA to Arenas will be incidental to the show’s plot as a whole. At its core, the show is about the women who have or have had relationships with basketball players rather than the players themselves. Thus, the show appears to be transformative.” Further, the judge finds there’s also fair use to Arenas’ name because there’s a matter of public interest involved. Observers might find it odd that a silly VH1 reality TV show could qualify as such importance under the First Amendment, but Judge Gee clarifies: “Arenas suggests that any discussion of his family life is not sufficiently related to his celebrity to render BWLA’s use of his identity a matter of public concern. This contention is belied by the tens of thousands of Twitter users who follow Arenas as he tweets about a variety of mundane occurrences. “Judge Gee then goes on to note there’s little evidence of “actual malice,” thus ridding of the defamation claim, and that the show’s advertising doesn’t imply any endorsement on Arenas’ part, thus nixing the commercial misappropriation claim. As for Arenas’ trademark allegations, the judge finds there isn’t any likelihood that viewers will be confused. “Although Arenas’ marks are strong,” writes Judge Gee, “they are completely dissimilar to Shed Media’s title. No one would confuse Arenas with a basketball wife.” Arenas will be resigned to watching the show, and if he spots any gruesome misappropriation of his likeness, can refile an amended complaint in the next couple of weeks. But given the show will have come out and the judge’s stated conclusion he’s unlikely to prevail, we can say that Arenas has been soundly trounced on in court by the mother of his four children.
Hines Wards has a lot explaining to do. The wide receiver for the Pittsburgh Steelers was arrested over the weekend for a D.U.I. This past spring, Ward won Dancing With The Stars. He apologized to his fans for the weekend mishap, and he insists he was not drinking or under the influence. He says he was texting, and that’s why his car was swerving when police stopped him. Earlier this year, Ward had an incident with police when they stopped him thinking he was driving in a stolen car.
Was it a political power grab or a fairer way to assure all citizens have equal representation?
Voting district boundaries are poised to be redrawn following a controversial decision in Nassau County on Tuesday, reports CBS 2’s Jennifer McLogan.
It was standing room only inside the Nassau Legislature as hundreds of workers came to rally for a new Nassau Coliseum hub — with questions about the $400 million bond referendum facing taxpayers — when suddenly there was an abrupt and unexpected schedule change.
Presiding Officer Peter Schmitt announced a vote on the controversial redistricting plan. Yet many who came to voice objections couldn’t get in due to the overflow Coliseum crowd.
“If you’re not here to discuss redistricting, we ask you to stand up and let those people come in because that’s the item that they’re now calling,” was the order from the Legislature.
When the 2010 census confirmed a population shift, Nassau’s Republican majority began remapping boundaries, resulting in sweeping changes through Hempstead, the North Shore, and the Five Towns.
Democrats argued it was hastily drawn and a political power grab.
“It’s a desperate chance to retain their majority and they control redistricting again next year,” Democratic Legislator David Denenberg said.
Those who did get to speak against let it all hang out.
“It’s completely racist. It’s wrong and everybody up there knows it,” one person said.
“We are taxpayers and we shouldn’t have to go through this abuse that we hear here,” another said.
“Why are they so fearful? Why are they insistent upon pushing it through now?” wondered another.
Republicans explained they are mandated to make changes — that this will give all residents a greater voice. They said they are trying to assure one person, one vote.
The NFL lockout is expected to be over soon, and a lot of players are going to be relieved because they need the money. Former Eagle Terrell Owens is having money issues, and his babymomma is talking him to court. Owens says he can’t make the payments, and he is disappointed that she doesn’t understand this. He feels she didn’t need to take him to court and embarrass him knowing he has money issues.
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