Its just amazing how someone can be in the public eye for decades and all you hear is how fabulous he or she is, then suddenly, as if a switch is flipped, the guy is a wacko.

Michael Jackson was always a wacko, but the media softpedalled his strangeness.

So what's the story with Tom Cruise? Is he a longstanding wacko with a hitherto effective publicist, or a guy getting reamed by the press?

Hard to say. I suspect most people enjoy a little private wackiness known only to family and friends, but social mores prevent us from displaying our eccentricities for all to see. Of course when your a famous actor, you can do pretty much anything you want, or at least you would be led to believe that was the case until the cocaine bust, the prostitution sting or a body is discovered in your swimming pool.

In any case, Cruise, whose girlfriend-slash-fiance is having his baby very shortly, has been allegedly quoted saying some pretty bizarre things and being a bit too evangelical about his Scientology. Nevertheless, this latest outburst is well within Michael Jackson land.

TOM Cruise yesterday revealed his latest bizarre mission..to eat his new baby's placenta.

Cruise vowed he would tuck in straight after girlfriend Katie Holmes gives birth, saying he thought it would be "very nutritious".

The Mission Impossible star, 43, said: "I'm gonna eat the placenta. I thought that would be good. Very nutritious. I'm gonna eat the cord and the placenta right there."

I've butchered deer, cleaned countless fish, but this made me queasy.