Katy Perry and Russell Brand (pictured Dec. 3) settled their divorce Tuesday. | Jason Merritt~Getty Images storyidforme: 25515367 tmspicid: 9296434
fileheaderid: 4248299
Updated: February 9, 2012 7:48PM
While the divorce agreement between Katy Perry and Russell Brand appeared to be quick and amicable, I hear there was a bit of tension until Brand gave in and agreed to everything Perry wanted. The big deal: The singer gets to keep all of the estimated $44 million she made during the couple’s marriage — half of which Brand could have claimed under California’s community property laws. Apparently, there was some bad Brand behavior — which I hear included both financial and personal issues — that he didn’t want to surface if there had been a protracted divorce battle.In the end, that all went away as Perry signed the document with a big “happy face” after her name.† Separate from all this, but a factor in the couple’s problems, were Brand’s frequent less-than-kind cracks about Perry’s parents and their deep evangelical Christian faith. ROYAL RUN: Though Naomi Watts grew up in Australia, she is a British native, and that may have played a part in the actress snaring the chance to portray Princess Diana in the last two years of her life. Originally, the buzz had California native Jessica Chastain as the leading contender for the Diana role in “Caught in Flight.” SPORTS SHORT: Former broadcast teammates Mike North and Dan Jiggetts will reunite for a one-night only gig at Arlington Racetrack. The March 8 event will be available on pay-for-view (go to northtonorth.com for all the outlets) or may be seen in person at the racetrack. GRAMMY GAB: There’s buzz that Lady Gaga may be opening the Grammys — could a payback to those recent Madonna disses be in the works?Sunday’s ceremony has the potential to be far better than recent shows, with performances scheduled by Paul McCartney, Adele and Maroon 5; the return of Chris Brown; a Carrie Underwood-Tony Bennett duet, and the long-awaited Beach Boys reunion of Mike Love, Al Jardine, and Brian Wilson. There are rumors of Van Halen hitting the stage, and Bruce Springsteen is slated to perform with his E Street Band. † Speaking of the Boss, he’s found a nice way to replace the late saxman Clarence Clemons, by including the Miami Horns — which included Clarence’s nephew, Jake Clemons — on his upcoming tour. MODEL MOMENT: Apparently, the reason supermodel Kate Moss has been seldom seen in the U.S. lately stems from that 2005 incident where she was photographed snorting what appeared to be cocaine. That combined with her long associations with well-known drug addicts led the U.S. immigration authorities to make it difficult for Moss to get a work permit. She was here in 2009 as part of a big Vogue-sponsored New York event, but that reportedly required editorAnna Wintour to use her clout with the Obama adminstration to cut the red tape for Moss. COUPLING: Though there are reports Justin Theroux wants to marry lady love Jennifer Aniston, I’m hearing the actress is happy to keep things just as they are — seeing she’s totally blissful in the relationship she’s carved out with her “Wanderlust” co-star.Aniston also has once again attempted to bury that rumor — that neither she nor Brad Pitt seemingly can kill — about her still carrying a grudge against Angelina Jolie for stealing her man. In InStyle, Aniston addresses the “most annoying misconception” the public has about her life. That is the alleged “triangle with my ex-husband — and that there’s a feud there. . . . It’s a story headline that won’t go away . . . a story that has nothing to do with reality.”BOOK IT : Ex-Chicagoan Charlotte Beers, the brilliant advertising world honcho, formerly CEO of Ogilvy & Mather and chairman of J. Walter Thompson — who also served as Under Secretary of State — has penned I’d Rather Be in Charge. It’s Beers’ memoir and guide to how she successfully smashed that proverbial “glass ceiling” for women in the workplace, leading the way for many others. SEEN ON THE SCENE: While in town for Black History Month events, director Spike Lee was spied dining at Wave at the W Lake Shore. . . . CSO maestro Riccardo Muti enjoyed a night off from conducting, hanging out at the rustic Italian eatery Tocco in Wicker Park — joined by the symphony’s Mead composers-in-residence Mason Bates and Anna Clyne. © 2011 Sun-Times Media, LLC. All rights reserved. This material may not be copied or distributed without permission. For more information about reprints and permissions, visit http://www.suntimesreprints.com/. To order a reprint of this article, click here.
Angelina Jolie plays a mystery woman on the run and Johnny Depp is a widower who gets caught up in her intrigue in “The Tourist.”PARIS — Here’s Johnny in a white T-shirt and a worn pair of jeans. Silver skull rings cover each finger and black silk bracelets adorn his wrists. His professionally mussed/non-washed hair falls into his face and stops abruptly at his chin, which is covered in two-day stubble. He wears nerdy, black, thick-rimmed glasses and has a denim bandana around his neck.This is what’s known in fashion circles as Post-Pirate Couture.Depp is fresh off playing Captain Jack Sparrow for the fourth time in a “Pirates of the Caribbean” sequel due out next year.“I’m done and now I’m spending six days decompressing,” he says. “I’m in Paris. I’m eating bad foods, playing with my kids and watching cartoons. I’m a happy guy.” Part of that decompressing is hanging out with a fellow A-Lister he barely knew before they made a movie together called “The Tourist”: Angelina Jolie.“It was sort of surprising that after all of these years in this racket that we didn’t know each other,” Depp says. “We had a lot of mutual acquaintances, but I had never really met Angie before this movie.”He gives Hollywood’s most famous lips the best lip service.“I was immediately impressed by her,” he says. “It’s not that I had read so much in the press about her — or even myself. I did know that she and Brad [Pitt] are globally hounded, stalked and tracked down. “Given that, I was most impressed by her kind of normalcy,” Depp says. “She’s very down to earth. She’s very smart, very funny, kind and caring. I was also impressed to find out that she’s a great mom. That’s always nice to see.”Jolie returns the praise.“Brad knew him first and said he was a great guy,” Jolie says. “I found that he was such a likable person. He’s very easy to talk to and I knew we would have fun together. We seemed to have a laugh very quicky.“When we improvised most of what we did wasn’t usable. But it was funny to us.”Depp, who lives with longtime girlfriend Vanessa Paradis and their two children in both Paris and Los Angeles, could relate to the Pitt-Jolie type of spotlight.“Angie and I talked about how to live a normal life. The key is none of us really go out that much. Vanessa and I stay home a lot. We try to lead as normal a life as possible. A simple life.”In “The Tourist,” Depp plays a widower from Wisconsin, a math teacher on vacation, who gets mixed up with a gorgeous mystery woman (Jolie) who is on the run from the law and Russian mobsters. “The ultimate challenge is to portray an everyday man with all his warts,” Depp says. “Like any pedestrian, he’s put in a series of situations so radically outside his hemisphere. “I like the idea of exploring normalcy,” Depp continues. “Those people who are considered normal most of the time are the most fascinating. They usually have routines teetering on obsessive and compulsive. I love their tics.” The only issue Depp had with the movie was dancing. “Dancing is the thing that scares me the most in life. Dancing to me is like a hard stunt,” says the man who didn’t mind jumping off rooftops and being dragged through the canals of Venice in the murky water. “I never dance in my life outside of my films. But weirdly it seems like in every film, I end up having to dance and go to jail.” Good thing then that Depp refuses to watch his own films.“I do my best to try and avoid them — at all costs,” he says. “My kids watch my movies. Obviously, there is a select few they can’t watch.”Depp says the rock in his life is his family.“Having kids didn’t change my life. It made my life,” he says. “Even when my kids were babies, I was the one learning from them. Now, my daughter Lily is 11 years old and my son Jack is 8. You start to get into these profound conversations. They ask me questions that leave my head spinning. They’ve added just pure joy to my life.”Big Picture News Inc.