Celebrity Mound

They’ve been relatively coy about their relationship up to now, but Penélope Cruz and her partner Javier Bardem appeared very much in love on holiday together.

The Spanish actress looked great in a skimpy black bikini as the couple frolicked in the sea on Fernando de Noronha, a cluster of islands off the Brazilian coast.

Cruz, 35, fuelled rumours that the couple are engaged with a telling sapphire ring on her left hand.

The star of Nine and her 40-year-old Oscar-winning boyfriend couldn’t keep their hands off each other as the spend time on the beach with the actor’s mother, Pilar, brother, Carlos and his girlfriend.

Javier and Penélope have reportedly been dating since 2007, but they are rarely seen showing public displays of affection – however, while on their Brazilian holiday, they hugged, kissed and touched each other playfully.

Last November the actress shot down attempts by chat show host David Letterman to find out whether she was engaged.

The star of Nine and her 40-year-old Oscar-winning boyfriend couldn’t keep their hands off each other as the spend time on the beach with the actor’s mother, Pilar, brother, Carlos and his girlfriend.

Javier and Penélope have reportedly been dating since 2007, but they are rarely seen showing public displays of affection – however, while on their Brazilian holiday, they hugged, kissed and touched each other playfully.

Last November the actress shot down attempts by chat show host David Letterman to find out whether she was engaged.

‘I don’t feel comfortable talking about my private life in public,’ she said when he asked if she was engaged.

The chat show host persisted, but Cruz refused to budge.

‘I’ve been here a few times with you, you know I’m tough. One thing I don’t do, I don’t lie about my personal life,’ she said.

‘It’s sacred to me. It’s my life. But I don’t give details about it because I am allergic to that.’

Cruz stars in star-studded new release Nine alongside Sophia Loren, Kate Hudson, Daniel Day-Lewis and Marion Cotillard among others.

She turned heads at the premiere of the film in Rome this week, wearing a floor-length cream dress with floral detailing.

The beautiful sunkissed islands where Penelope and Javier are staying, Fernando de Noronha, consists of 21 islands and islets around 220 miles offshore from the north-east Brazilian coast.

Its main island has an area of 7.1 squares miles, the local population and travellers can get to Noronha by plane or cruise from Recife or by plane from Natal.

It has been previously owned by the English, French, Dutch and Portuguese and is now considered a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Penelope Cruz, Nicole Kidman and Stacy “Fergie” Ferguson

Penelope Cruz, director Rob Marshall and Nicole Kidman

Jeremy Piven, Tanisha Harper and Stacy “Fergie” Ferguson

Penelope Cruz is reportedly shopping around for a designer to make her wedding gown.

According to In Touch Weekly, the 35-year-old actress, who is reportedly engaged to actor Javier Bardem, has been meeting with her favorite designers in preparation for the couple’s rumored wedding.

“Since she and Javier are from Spain, she’d love to have a Spanish designer create her dream gown,” a friend told the mag.

Cruz is said to be considering the House of Balenciaga, who designed best friend Salma Hayek’s gown for her wedding with billionaire François-Henri Pinault in February.

“Salma’s dress was specifically designed for her by the company’s creative director, Nicolas Ghesquière, and it was just beautiful,” added the source. “I’m sure they would be more than thrilled to create a gown for Penelope.”

Cruz, 35, and Bardem, 40, have yet to officially announce their engagement, but the actress was spotted wearing a sapphire ring on her engagement finger when she recently appeared on the “Late Show with David Letterman.”

So when will the wedding go down?

“They will marry very soon, maybe even over the holidays,” the friend told the mag. “Penelope’s parents are conservative Catholics and are really pushing for her to get married. Javier would like to take things slowly, but Penelope wants to make her parents happy.”

(source)

Penelope Cruz didn’t look pregnant, but Javier Bardem’s girlfriend wore a big sapphire surrounded by diamonds on her left ring finger at Paper magazine’s dinner for her and director Pedro Almodovar at Casa Lever Saturday night.

Madonna snuck in a back door to join Debbie Harry, Isabel and Ruben Toledo, Paige Powell with new beau Jeffrey Deitch, Sean McPherson, Serge Becker and Joey Arias. Paper’s cherubic columnist Mickey Boardman was presented with a surprise birthday cake and a song by Metropolitan Opera counter-tenor Anthony Costanzo.

(source)

Congratulations, Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem.

The fiercely private couple is still playing coy about whether or not they’re dating. But, take it from us, they are in fact engaged.

Rumors that they might be betrothed have been floating around since April. Not true then. True now.

“They’re telling friends they will get married,” says a pal, who heard the news directly from one of them.

A wedding is bound to comfort Cruz’s Catholic parents, considering stubborn rumors that she’s pregnant.

But she continues to deny she’s with child – even to friends. Despite a photo showing the smiling pair leaving an OB/GYN clinic in Madrid last month, they’ve been telling friends to hold off on the baby gifts.

“They say the pregnancy stories aren’t true,” says another skeptical friend.

Publicists for the stars declined to comment.

Cruz professed ambivalence about being a wife as recently as August. “I don’t know if I believe in marriage,” the actress, who’d weathered the glare of her romance with Tom Cruise, told the UK’s Psychologies magazine. “I believe in family, love and children.”

She added, “When I [have children], I want to do it really well. I want it to be my best project in life.”

While many reports have time-stamped Cruz and Bardem’s romance as starting in 2007, few know they first fell for each other in 1992 while making “Jamon, Jamon,” where their fiery sex scenes were improved by some real-life rehearsals.

Cruz broke it off with Bardem after the film, but they teamed again for 1997’s “Live Flesh.” By the time Woody Allen cast them in “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” both were older, wiser and international superstars. They fell in love all over again.

Cruz’s convincing performance as Bardem’s virago ex earned her an Oscar. (He came home with one, too, for “No Country for Old Men.”)

Some reports claimed they’d broken up last year, alleging she was mad at him for breaking a promise to take a year off from work. “Penelope is really angry because she turned down a few really good roles because she was so committed to their sabbatical,” one source was quoted as saying.

Her brother Eduardo contended Cruz was also disappointed that Bardem wouldn’t go along with her plan to adopt a baby from India.

Despite those reports, the two have remained inseparable, doing a very bad job of pretending to be friends. From the sound of things, they’re finally ready to give up their ruse.

(source)

Though she was recently spotted coming out of an ob-gyn clinic in Madrid, Penelope Cruz has been battling pregnancy rumors for months.

In an interview in the November issue of Vanity Fair, the notoriously shy Spanish actress, who stars in two movies to be released in the U.S. this fall, emphatically denies her rumored pregnancy.

Of course, that interview was done before the photos emerged of Cruz and Bardem emerging, smiling, from a Spanish clinic, clutching paperwork. Last Thursday, Cruz and Bardem were spotted “positively glowing” outside the private Hospital Ruber Internacional, where David and Victoria Beckham’s son, Cruz, was born in 2005.

But when asked by contributing editor Ingrid Sischy if she was pregnant with Bardem’s baby, Cruz “answered no but in a rather baroque, roundabout way, detailing how [director Pedro] Almodó var had tried, to no avail, to put that rumor to rest when a journalist asked him about it on a red carpet.”

Of course, that could be old news now.

One thing Cruz did not deny is the fun she has with her boyfriend.

The Oscar-winning actress admitted that “Javier is even better at air guitar!” after the couple were spotted rocking out at a U2 concert in Paris.

Perhaps the steamiest part of the Vanity Fair interview occurs when Sischy asks who kisses better, Scarlett Johansson or Charlize Theron, both of whom Cruz has smooched on screen.

Ever the diplomat, even when it comes to swapping spit, the Academy Award winning actress replies, “No matter how I answer that I will be in trouble. Both were pretty beautiful partners.”

The November issue of Vanity Fair hits New York newsstands on September 30th, just in time to promote Cruz’s two new movies.

In October, Cruz will headline her fourth movie with director Pedro Almodó var, “Broken Embraces,” and in November, she will star in Rob Marshall’s musical masterpiece “Nine” alongside Daniel Day-Lewis, Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman, Kate Hudson and Sophia Loren.

(source)

If Penelope Cruz is trying to quash those pesky pregnancy rumors, she’s got a funny way of showing it.

The Oscar-winning actress was positively glowing as she left an ob-gyn clinic with boyfriend Javier Bardem in Madrid on Thursday.

The Spanish stars were snapped outside the private Hospital Ruber Internacional, where David and Victoria Beckham’s son, Cruz, was born in 2005.

The new pictures come just a week after the lusty Spaniard had a hissy fit when a reporter at the Toronto Film Festival asked whether she was pregnant.

She also told USA Today earlier this month that she has turned away baby gifts. “I start getting some presents from friends saying, ‘Congratulations, you’re pregnant.’ And I say, ‘No, I’m not, so I return the presents.’ It’s amazing,” she said.

These pictures are sure to get the rumor mill back in motion. Not only is Cruz swaddled in a loose black blouse and long coat, but Bardem is tightly clutching a large, white envelope.

Could that package contain the test results the world has been awaiting? Reps for Cruz were unavailable for comment.

Cruz, 35, and Bardem, 40, have been dating since 2007. They have appeared together in three films, including Woody Allen’s “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.”

(source)

Is Penelope Cruz preggers?

The stunning Spanish actress looked a little curvier than usual at the Berlin premiere of her movie “Broken Embraces.”

Her cleverly-draped green evening gown couldn’t conceal what looked like a budding baby bump, sparking pregnancy rumors on Thursday.

Plus Cruz, 35, canceled several public appearances at the Cannes Film Festival last May, citing the “flu” and “food poisoning” – common cover-ups for morning sickness.

She has been linked with handsome actor Javier Bardem since 2007.

They’ve already starred in three movies together – perhaps they’re ready for a lifelong role as loving parents?

Cruz hasn’t been shy about sharing her maternal instincts.

“When I [have babies,] I want to do it really well,” she told the August issue of the U.K. magazine Psychologies.

“I want it to be my best project in life.”

(source)