Cruz and Bardem ‘engaged’ but is she pregnant?

The most enigmatic relationship in showbiz just got more mysterious, after the New York Daily News claimed that Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz were engaged to be married. The Spanish actors have so far refused even to confirm that they are dating, but that hasn't stopped the gossip press from speculating that Cruz is pregnant.

Bardem and Cruz first met when they starred opposite each other in Pedro Almodovar's international breakthrough Jamon Jamon in 1992. The couple reportedly enjoyed a brief romance then, before going their separate ways, Cruz, in time, to very public romances with Hollywood A-listers Tom Cruise and Matthew McConaughey.

They were reunited in 2007 on the set of Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona, in which they played a perpetually feuding divorced pair of artists (above). The film catapulted Cruz to global superstardom - she won best supporting actress at the Oscars - and since then has begun dropping hints that changes were afoot in her life.

She told the Times in August, long after rumours of her renewed friendship with Bardem first circulated, that she "wanted something else". Her declaration that "I may only make one film a year, other years none at all" seemed to suggest that she was clearing time from her schedule for children and marriage.

So the revelations in the Rush & Molloy gossip column in the Daily News have the ring of truth, with Bardem and Cruz reported to be telling friends that they are getting married. However, they insist "the pregnancy stories aren't true" - despite being spotted leaving a pregnancy clinic in Madrid in September.