Cruise wins a judgment

Tom Cruise has won a $10 million defamation judgment against a porn actor who allegedly told a French magazine that the two men had a homosexual affair that broke up Cruise’s 10-year marriage to Nicole Kidman.

A Los Angeles judge entered the default judgment in late December after defendant Chad Slater, whose stage name is Kyle Bradford, admitted that his story as it appeared in the French publication Actustar was false and said he would not actively defend himself against the lawsuit, Cruise’s attorney, Ricardo Cestero, said in a statement released Wednesday.

“We requested $10 million recognizing that we don’t know if this guy will satisfy any judgment, but it’s important for Tom to be able to protect his reputation,” Cestero told the Associated Press. Any proceeds Cruise recovers on the judgment will be donated to charity. Cestero was unavailable for further comment.

This is the second time that Cruise has prevailed in lawsuits he filed to quash rumors.

In June 2001, the 40-year-old actor sued Michael Davis, the Los Angeles publisher of Bold magazine, for $100 million after Davis claimed to have a videotape of Cruise engaged in homosexual acts. That lawsuit was dropped after Davis publicly admitted that he had no such videotape.

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Gina Piccalo