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REDSTONE RECANTS RANT ON CRUISE FIRING

By JANET WHITMAN

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March 3, 2007 -- Six months after booting Tom Cruise off the Paramount Pictures lot, media mogul Sumner Redstone is denying he fired the kooky, couch-hopping movie star.

"What happened was, I just gave an interview to the Wall Street Journal," Redstone told Time Inc.'s People magazine at the premiere of "Zodiac" in Hollywood. "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."

Redstone's venomous attack - which criticized Cruise's weird, off-camera antics including his now infamous couch jumping on the "Oprah Winfrey Show" to profess his love for then fiancee Katie Holmes - caught the octogenarian media titan's deputies completely by surprise.

Paramount boss Brad Grey and Tom Freston, who has since been ousted by Redstone as head of Paramount parent Viacom, had planned to fire Cruise in a more tactful way.

The execs were worried that Cruise's strange behavior, including his strong Church of Scientology beliefs and rants against the use of antidepressants, would drive away fans.

But Redstone's own rant in August in the Journal article immediately prompted concerns in the media industry that the 83-year-old media titan had lost it.

Now, Redstone tells People he's ready to be friends again with Cruise.

"I haven't talked with him recently," Redstone told the magazine. "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."

Reps for Cruise, who has hauled in nearly $3 billion in ticket sales in the United States alone over his career, had no comment on the People article. Viacom also had no comment.

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