People: May 14, 2001

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W. Speaks Up

GEORGE W. BUSH and Hillary Clinton don't have much in common, but they share the same blue blood. Yale Blue. (He's class of '68; she's law school '73.) And both will speak to the graduating class of '01. Clinton will deliver the traditional class-day address on May 20. While Yale doesn't normally have commencement-day speakers, the university is making an exception for the President, who--say sources close to Bush--will receive an honorary degree when he speaks on May 21. The White House and Yale had hoped to keep the visit a secret as long as possible; the President has carried "a chip on his shoulder about Yale," according to Roland Betts, a close friend and member of the Yale Corporation. Bush, seen below as an undergrad, loathed the "intellectual arrogance" he encountered there, he once told TIME. And he resented that Yale didn't give his father (class of '48) an honorary degree until 1991. But now that W is President--and daughter Barbara is a freshman--it seems he is ready to make peace with Yale. And share the Blue limelight with the former First Lady.

PRIME TIME'S FAVORITE PASTIME

Two-sport star DEION SANDERS has always referred to football as his wife and baseball as his girlfriend. His wife may want to contact a lawyer. Sanders, the only man to play in both the World Series and the Super Bowl, returned to baseball for the first time since 1997 last week and showed no interest in leaving, going 3 for 3 with a home run and a stolen base while roaming the outfield for the Cincinnati Reds. Following a series of ovations from the Ohio fans, Sanders filled the press room with his own bizarre expression of gratitude: "I've never felt appreciated like that in my life. I've always felt like a jukebox... 'You play what I push, you do what I want.' And if I don't play the record they want me to play, they're upset, and they're kicking the box." Maybe the box is playing his colossally awful rap single, It Must Be the Money.

MESSING WITH TOM IS RISKY BUSINESS

TOM CRUISE has spent the better part of a decade denying rumors that he is gay--perhaps because he has starred in films with titles like A Few Good Men, Top Gun and The Firm. Now he's filed a $100 million lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court against a porn star who may or may not have told a French magazine that Cruise was his lover. According to the suit, CHAD SLATER, who performs under the name Kyle Bradford, told Actustar that he had "a continuing homosexual affair with Tom Cruise and that this affair was discovered by Mr. Cruise's wife, leading to their divorce." Slater issued a complete denial. "I have never been to France, I have never spoken with Actustar magazine and have never said any of the alleged statements," reads a message on Slater's website. Whoever is at fault, Cruise's lawyer Bert Fields sounds like a man sitting atop one-third of a big pile of cash: "We're still trying to figure out the facts, but if [Slater's] denial turns out to be the truth, we're really going after that magazine." Please, someone call me gay.

SECRETLY, HE'S REALLY JEALOUS