Celebrity year in review: Top three stories

The biggest celebrity stories of 2012 boil down to simple arithmetic: addition and subtraction. Two famous families announced they were growing their ranks; another revealed it was breaking apart. Here's looking at this year's ledger sheet of star systems waxing and waning.

In the plus column ...

Brangelina make it official

It may have landed on a Friday, but April 13, 2012, was a fortuitous day for fans of fairy tales. Via his manager, Brad Pitt confirmed that the lozenge-like rock his ladyfriend had been seen sporting was no prop: He and longtime love Angelina Jolie, the mother of his six children, were indeed engaged. "It is a promise for the future, and their kids are very happy," Cynthia Pett-Dante said in a statement. The news of the world's most platinum couple planning a seven-year hitch set the stage for another superlative: the Hollywood wedding of the decade (so far). Rumors regarding when vows would be swapped swirled throughout the year, reaching a fever pitch in August, when all eyes turned to the pair's South of France chateau. Mais, zut alors! No knot-tying took place.

These days, the groom is keeping the world guessing. "It's soon and I got a good feeling about it," he said last month at a Killing Them Softly screening, adding, "The time has come."

"I'm getting more pressure from my kids," he said, "and it's something I want to do within their lifetime." Way to leave them dangling, Dad!

William and Kate make a baby

There was only one way to top last year's top celebrity event: The royal wedding had to beget a royal baby. The Dec. 3 announcement from Clarence House confirmed what gossip magazines had been predicting for weeks. "Their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are very pleased to announce that the Duchess of Cambridge is expecting a baby," it read. "The Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales, the Duchess of Cornwall and Prince Harry and members of both families are delighted with the news."

And with that began the biggest bump watch since paparazzi began training their cameras on celebrity midsections.

Not even 12 weeks old, the in-utero heir was heralded the world over, by a president (Obama), a prime minister (David Cameron) and a couple of Kardashians (Kim and Khloe). And the world learned a new term: hyperemesis gravidarum, aka acute morning sickness, which kept Kate hospitalized through Dec. 6. The duchess publicly emerged 10 days later, as a presenter at a BBC sports awards show, looking radiant in emerald green Alexander McQueen. Must have been that glow.

And the minus ...

TomKat goes kaput

On June 29, a slow-news summer Friday erupted with a breakup bombshell: Katie Holmes had filed for divorce from her husband of five years, Tom Cruise. "This is a personal and private matter for Katie and her family," the actress's attorney, Jonathan Wolfe, said in a statement. Cruise's rep, Amanda Lundberg, countered with her own comment: "Tom is deeply saddened and is concentrating on his three children."

By all accounts, the man who had carefully controlled his image for nearly three decades had been blindsided by the woman who helped "couch-jumping" enter the lexicon. And for a spell, it looked like the fallout would get ugly. But less than two weeks after Holmes split, the couple had hammered out an agreement, with reports giving Holmes primary custody of 6-year-old Suri and primary responsibility over her education and religious upbringing.

Since then, Cruise has kept an uncharacteristically low profile, and media attention has all but shifted to tracking Holmes' every sunglass-shielded move as she makes her way as a single mom in New York.

USA Today