Kutcher files petition for split with Moore
Ashton Kutcher filed court papers Friday to end his seven-year marriage to actress Demi Moore.
The actor’s divorce petition cites irreconcilable differences. Moore announced last year that she was ending her marriage to the actor 15 years her junior, but she never filed a petition. Kutcher has been dating former “That ’70s Show” co-star Mila Kunis.
Kutcher and Moore married in September 2005 and until recently kept their relationship very public, communicating with each other and fans on the social networking site Twitter. After their breakup, Moore changed her name on the site from @mrskutcher to @justdemi.
Moore was previously married to actor Bruce Willis for 13 years. They had three daughters together – Rumer, Scout and Tallulah Belle – before divorcing in 2000.
Singer pleads not guilty to assault
Country star Randy Travis has pleaded not guilty to simple assault and faces trial March 11 in a Dallas-area municipal court. Travis on Friday appeared in a Plano, Texas, courtroom with his attorneys and asked for a jury trial.
Plano police cited Travis following an Aug. 23 incident in a church parking lot in which he allegedly intervened in an argument involving a woman he knows and her estranged husband. Nobody was hurt.
Travis, when asked Friday by to comment about his recent legal troubles, said people shouldn’t believe everything they might hear or read.
Grant settles phone hacking scam
Hugh Grant’s lawyer says the actor has settled his phone hacking claim against Rupert Murdoch’s now-defunct News of the World tabloid for what he described as a “substantial” but undisclosed sum of money.
Mark Thomson said Friday that Grant would donate cash from the settlement, as well as an additional payment, to media reform group Hacked Off, which is campaigning for stricter oversight of Britain’s scandal-tainted press.
Grant was one of the first celebrities to turn on Murdoch’s star tabloid as it emerged that journalists there hacked the phones of people in the public eye, listening in on their private communications in search of stories.
The birthday bunch
Actor Hector Elizondo is 76. ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer is 67. Rock singer-musician Rick Nielsen (Cheap Trick) is 66. Rapper Luther Campbell is 52. Actor Ralph Fiennes is 50. Actress Dina Meyer is 44. Rhythm-and-blues singer Jordin Sparks is 23.