KEY POINTS:
The women's magazines this week dish up another serving of powerful tales of love, betrayal and the frailty of the human condition.
And that was just Nicole Kidman.
Our Neek, as they say in the Aussie vernacular, has been left devastated after Katie Holmes revealed that the star's two adopted children now call Katie mum, reports Woman's Day.
"My kids don't call me mummy - they don't even call me mum," revealed Nicole in a recent interview.
"They call me Nicole, which I hate, and I tell them off for it."
The Day reports that the revelations in an American magazine from Tom's new flame have only served to deepen the tug of love over Isabella, 15, and Connor, 12.
The New Zealand Woman's Weekly, meanwhile, was content to run a picture of Nicole in an odd silver pantsuit ensemble she wore to the Sydney premiere of her latest film, The Golden Compass.
Not for them the heartbreak of the ex-Mrs Cruise, instead opting to relate the tale of how Oprah Winfrey brought sexy back.
It seemed that the cultural icon's 21-year relationship with longtime lover Stedman Graham was on the rocks after the star was beset by a sea of troubles - not least the scandals at her school for girls in South Africa, and re-emerging health and weight problems.
A source said the problems put a stop to the pair's once red-hot relationship, with Oprah no longer having the time for her "afternoon delight" with Stedman - a regular occurrence that involved the star putting off business meetings for some intimate time.
The turning point, said the source, was when Stedman left a note for her asking, "Is there still time in your life for me?" and signed it, "from the guy who loves you".
It's a happy ending, and while the story doesn't say, Stedman is presumably getting his afternoon delights now.
The Weekly's cover story reveals that Carlos Spencer might not win father of the year after his decision to carry on playing golf while his wife Jodene went into labour.
" ... she told me that her waters had broken and she was in labour. But she said she was all right, so I hung up, thinking I'd play another hole," said the All Black great.
He managed to reach the 16th hole when he decided to return home to take her to the hospital.
As always, there is the obligatory shot of a shirtless Spencer with new arrival Asha.
New Idea has opted for a catch-all cover with all the things that make for the usual fodder - babies, weddings, scandals and hook-ups and break-ups.
Its best-and-worst-of-2007 edition carries three wedding stories of rugby players getting hitched to their long-time loves. The beer ad says it's a hard road finding the perfect woman. By that reckoning, All Black hooker Derren Witcombe is on to a keeper in Lenska Papich.
The 29-year-old Mrs Witcombe, wearing an elegant Kate Dowman gown with crystal-encrusted belt and veil, and her three bridesmaids were being driven by her father, Rudy, on the back of an old tractor to meet her waiting groom on the beach at Waipu Cove - the same beach where he had proposed two years earlier.
"Dad mistook a rather large log for seaweed," Lenska told New Idea. "Luckily, the Waipu girls know how to hold on to the back of a tractor. It was hilarious!"
