Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes reached a settlement on Monday, legally sorting out their divorce with the same speed that kicked off their much-scrutinized romance seven years ago. Just as Hollywood was settling in for a long and nasty separation, lawyers for the couple said the pair settled less than two weeks after Holmes unexpectedly filed for divorce.
“The case has been settled and the agreement has been signed,” Holmes’ attorney Jonathan Wolfe said in a statement.
Cruise’s attorney, Bert Fields, also confirmed the settlement in a statement: “Tom is really pleased we got there and so am I.”
The resolution was notably quick, particularly in Hollywood terms. By way of comparison, Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries are still negotiating a divorce for a marriage that lasted less than three months.
“A quick settlement indicates that they were able to agree that they’ll both do some co-parenting,” said Steve Mindel, a managing partner at Los Angeles firm Feinberg, Mindel, Brandt and Klein.
The rapid settlement saves the couple from a public battle that was sure to be covered vigorously by the celebrity news media. In the already voluminous tabloid reporting, Holmes had been portrayed with overwhelmingly more sympathy. The emerging narrative, was of a locked-away Holmes breaking free from the servitude of a strange, corrupting marriage.
Us Weekly reported that the couple “fought viciously” over Scientology parenting. A TMZ headline blared “Tom treated me like a robot.” That may also be the most convenient view of a relationship that even at its start spawned “Free Katie!” T-shirts.
Their divorce case lasted less than two weeks, but Mindel said that is not uncommon for high-profile breakups:
“There’s too many incentives on both sides of the equation for settlement,” he said.
Actor-comedian Russell Brand’s divorce from singer Katy Perry took a little more than a month to resolve, while director Cameron Crowe and singer-guitarist Nancy Wilson resolved their divorce in less than three months.
Cruise and Holmes may have saved more than just their dignity by not fighting out their divorce in court. A drawn-out custody battle would have likely cost more than US$1 million in legal fees.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
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Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia