It is always fascinating to learn how much celebs make.  TV Guide has released their annual star salary survey, based on information from TV industry insiders and published sources.

Oprah Winfrey earns $385 million a year.  Each year!!! 

Simon Cowell makes $50 million a year.

David Letterman makes $32 million a year.

Charlie Sheen is the highest-paid TV actor, making $825,000 per episode.  With around 22 episodes in a season, Charlie will likely bank about $20 million a year.

There are millions to be made even if you are never actually seen on television.

Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane, who supplies the voice of lead character Peter Griffin, just signed a deal with Fox that will net him $100 million through 2012.

And The Simpsons cast — Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith and Hank Azaria — each earn $400,000 per episode.

It’s finally a done deal! XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio say they have completed their merger.

What will they call it? The new company plans to change its name to Sirius XM Radio Inc.

Will Oprah and Howard Stern take any business meetings together?  Ha!  The Oprah and Friends Network was on XM and Howard Stern on Sirius.  I wonder what will happen to people with the old satellite radios in their cars.

Oprah has complete her 21-day vegan detox.  She detailed her vegan journey on her blog.  On her last day, day 21, Oprah says that she is craving wine, specifically a Bordeaux 82. Oprah connects this journey with food to a spiritual awakening.

Says Oprah:

All ingredients except the olive oil came from my garden. Yes, I’m growing potatoes this year, as well as beets and corn. I got a real kick out of that. I was raised by a grandmother who grew and harvested everything. Going to the garden was something I took for granted…now it thrills me to see the baskets of lettuce, fava beans, and herbs, fresh picked.

What I know for sure is I’ve reached a new level of awareness about food, eating and the whole process of how it gets to my table. I used to say thanks before a meal out of perfunctory habit. Now I consider it true grace to be able to eat anything in a world of increasing food shortages and starving people.

This has been exactly what we intended: enlightening. I will forever be a more cautious and conscious eater. That’s my commitment for now. To stay awakened.

Oprah Winfrey, 54, has announced she is going vegan for a 21-day detox.

And she insists on her blog that it isn’t so bad.

“Wow, wow, wow! I never imagined meatless meals could be so satisfying.” she writes. “I had been focused on what I had to give up — sugar, gluten, alcohol, meat, chicken, fish, eggs, cheese. ‘What’s left?’ I thought. Apparently a lot. I can honestly say every meal was a surprise and a delight, beginning with breakfast — strawberry rhubarb wheat-free crepes.”

Inspired by Kathy Freston’s book Quantum Wellness, Winfrey says, “this 21-day cleanse gives me a chance to think about [eating] differently and see what my attachments are to certain kinds of foods – and what I’m willing to do to change.”

Her new menu — created by Freston’s own chef Tal Ronnen — features food like tofu scramble roasted tomato, grilled onion and sweet garlic aioli quesadillas with jicama slaw.

She plans to blog her the entire dieting process.

“Don’t know if I’m going to feel better or worse,” Winfrey writes, “but I’m willing to try to see if my body at least feels differently.”

Here is a clip from Oprah’s show where she talks about Mariah Carey getting married to Nick Cannon. Oprah also talks about Mariah’s new tattoo and shows some of Mariah and Nick’s wedding pictured. Check it out!

Oprah is getting some much talked about interviews. Today and Monday, her Tom Cruise interviews will air. Then on Tuesday, her Barbara Walters interview will be on. Some juicy dish from the Walters interview has already surfaced.

Barbara Walters has confessed to having a relationship with then-married Senator Edward Brooke during the 1970s.

Walters shared details of her several-year romance with the Massachusetts Republican on the Oprah Winfrey Show in a taped interview to air Tuesday.

When asked if she was in love, The View host responded, “I was certainly - I don’t know - I was infatuated.”

The twice-divorced Walters went on to say, “I was certainly involved… He was exciting. He was brilliant. It was exciting times in Washington.”

Walters was on the show to discuss her new memoir, Audition.

In the first part of his interview with Oprah Winfrey (airing Friday), Tom Cruise reveals that he jumped on her couch in 2005 because he was so in love with Katie Holmes and couldn’t contain himself.

Winfrey confessed that the incident caught her by surprise.

“When we finished that show with you jumping up on the sofa, I was like, ‘Wow. What was that?’” she tells him in an interview in his Telluride, Colo., home. “I had no idea it was going to turn into an international brouhaha, as I’m sure you did not either.”

She even confesses, “I was a little nervous coming up this morning, I have to admit, because you and I have not sat down for a real conversation since the sofa incident.”

Cruise tells Winfrey, “I just felt that way, and I feel that way about her.

“I can’t even articulate it, to be honest,” he adds. “That feeling, that connection. Just who she is and what she means to me.”

Of the negative response to his couch jumping, Cruise says, “It just kind of kept going.

“Those things I kind of go, ‘You just have to take in stride.’ It just kind of became a confluence of things.”

ON  MATT LAUER

He also opened up about his 2005 interview with Matt Lauer (Cruise attacked the anchor, calling him “glib” during a chat about psychiatry and the use of anti-depressant drugs).
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Tom Cruise is returning to “Oprah”!

The actor hasn’t appeared on Winfrey’s daytime talk show since his June 23, 2005, appearance where in addition to promoting “War of the Worlds,” he very enthusiastically expressed his love for future wife Katie Holmes (we’re putting the whole couch incident in the past).

It’s not clear what the focus of this show will be, but it is well-timed to May sweeps, and a quick look at the calendar shows that this summer is the 25th anniversary of Cruise’s breakthrough role in “Risky Business.”

We think Tom is a sweet guy and we hope his appearance goes with controversary.