Cruise sacks sister as a PR

After a year of negative publicity, Tom Cruise is no longer keeping it in the family.

He has sacked his publicist - his sister Lee Anne DeVette - and replaced her with Rogers and Cowan, a slick Hollywood PR company which represents the Beckhams, Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone and Cruise's fellow Scientologist, John Travolta.

In a year that saw the 43-year-old get engaged to girlfriend Katie Holmes and star in the critically-acclaimed War Of The Worlds, 2005 should have been a great 12 months for the actor - but instead he attracted a stream of negative headlines.

He suffered public embarrassment when he was squirted in the face with water at the London premiere of War Of The Worlds, and was criticised for saying Brooke Shields should not take anti-depressant drugs.

Cruise and Holmes ' s engagement, at a time when both of them had new films to promote, was also accused of being a publicity stunt.

Last night, Cruise said Ms DeVette had done 'a wonderful-job' but would now represent him only in his charitable work.