Cruises Swear Staff To Silence

Sun Herald

Sunday May 30, 1999

From LIZ HODGSON in Los Angeles

TOM Cruise and his wife, Nicole Kidman, are so worried about leaks about their private life they have drawn up a punitive price list for their staff.

Employees have to sign a seven-page legal document promising not to disclose any confidential information about the family.

The contract lists amounts of money they will have to pay if they break the agreement.

Confidential information includes photographs, videos and tapes of Cruise and Kidman and their two children and pictures of any houses or other property they own or are using, as well as information about their personal, professional or financial affairs.

The couple is living in Sydney while Cruise makes Mission: Impossible II.

For "private disclosure or repetition of confidential information" they demand more than $76,000 for every person the employee tells.

A newspaper or magazine interview would cost $30 for each copy printed with a minimum payment of $1.5 million per publication.

Supplying information for a book would incur a penalty of $380 for each copy printed, with a minimum of $1.5 million in the United States, $766,000 for publication in Australia, the UK, Japan, Germany, Italy, France, Canada, Australia or Spain and $380,000 in the rest of the world.

A broadcast on American network television would cost $7.6 million, or $3 million for non-network stations, while foreign television broadcasts would incur a penalty of $1.5 million in major territories and $766,000 in other countries.

If an employee supplies an outsider with any form of video recording, Cruise and Kidman expect them to pay $46 for each tape or disc made, or $15 for each copy of an audio recording, with a minimum of $1.5 million in each case.

And as a catch-all, in case they have missed any possible way of spilling the beans, the confidentiality agreement adds "by other public disclosure or repetition, $1.5 million for each such disclosure or repetition".

But they do say they will be less harsh on employees who simply make a mistake - they will have to pay only half of the fee specified for that breach.

Details of the agreement were disclosed in court papers connected with lawsuit brought by former housekeeper Judita Gomez, who claims she was wrongfully dismissed last year.

On top of the specified sums, Cruise and Kidman also expect tattling employees to hand over any money they are paid for information.

According to the agreement, the price list is necessary because it would be difficult to prove exact damages caused by a breach of confidentiality.

© 1999 Sun Herald

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