Penelope and Javier at Salma Hayek’s wedding in April. Credit: ELIOT PRESS/bauergriffinonline.com.
I’m not sure how many more rounds this Penelope Cruz engagement/pregnancy rumor has. At some point, I think people are going to get tired of running variations on the same old story that Penelope keeps denying, but there’s yet another new round today. The NY Daily News’ Rush & Malloy are reporting that while Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem definitely weren’t engaged before, they totally are now. They’re also not bothering to do another round of “she’s totally pregnant” crap, probably because Penelope just denied the rumors again in November’s Vanity Fair. Apparently, even Penelope’s friends are skeptical of this denial, but whatever. She’s not telling us, and at some point, even I get exhausted with the baby bump game. The most interesting slice of gossip from this Rush & Malloy report – in my mind – is that Javier wasn’t interested in adopting a baby from India when Penelope had her heart set on it:

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.

[From Rush & Malloy]

I think they’re definitely together, and definitely serious about each other. I’d also buy that she’s pregnant before I’d buy that they’re engaged. It doesn’t seem like either of them are the traditional white-wedding type, and I don’t understand how any woman could be with Javier for any length of time without getting knocked up. I think I got pregnant just looking at him.

Penelope Cruz is shown at the Toronto Film Festival on 9/10/09 (dressed up, credit: WENN.com) and out in LA on 9/9/09 (gray t-shirt, credit: Fame Pictures)