Semi-Rational Tom Cruise Didn't Really Compare Acting to Soldiering

Yesterday, word spread that ageless human branding mechanism Tom Cruise had been quoted comparing his job (as a punch-kicking thespian who has the most demonstrative "running really fast face" in Hollywood) to that of a soldier. In Afghanistan. Cool story, bro, sneered the Internet, as everyone was collectively grateful that Tom Cruise has a private airplane and will therefore never be any ordinary person's exasperating seat neighbor on a commercial flight. There's a twist, however, to Cruise's apparently remorseless arrogance: he was probably misquoted, as if TMZ was purposely exploiting the public's perception of Tom Cruise as an entitled dickhead. Or something.

With his praetorian guard of litigators ready to dispel any shred of unfavorable gossip, Cruise's lawyer Bert Fields released a statement yesterday denying that the actor ever actually compared his job mugging in front of expensive camera equipment to that of a deployed soldier:

Headlines stating he equated his job with those in the military are demonstrably false. They are a distortion of what is provable and on the record. Certain websites have published only a part of the proceedings misleadingly selected by the defendant Bauer Publishing.

What the excerpts leave out is the part where Tom was asked the question point blank "do you believe the situations (being in a movie and fighting a war in Afghanistan) are the same?" and his immediate response was "oh come on!" Meaning - of course not. Tom is a staunch supporter of our troops and does not feel that making a movie is even remotely comparable to fighting in Afghanistan and said so in plain English.

In the written deposition, Cruise was actually asked whether being separated from his daughter while shooting movies was comparable to a service member's separation from his/her family during deployment, to which he was responded (with appropriate incredulity), "Oh come on. You know, we're making a movie." Sorry, everyone. We all just have to go back to assuming without definite proof that Tom Cruise secretly believes he is the greatest human ever. [USA Today, TMZ]

  • Still don't believe that Courtney Stodden isn't actually a 47-year-old performance artist who once starred in student film about a crepe-making mime with a side business as a haberdasher in a sooty little cave dwelling under the Pont Neuf? She signed her separation agreement with Doug Hutchinson with a heart nestled in the loop of her cursive "n." [Daily Mail]
  • Out of the ashes comes first sorrow. Then anger. "The only good Bieber, is a banished Bieber," an imaginary Argentine was quoted as saying. So, with the populace growing weary of his fan-generating presence, the Hotel Faena in Buenos Aires asked Justin Bieber to get the fuck out, plz thanks, and now he's looking for a new place to stay. [TMZ]
  • Britney Spears, Britney Spears's new boyfriend, and Kevin Federline all stood awkwardly next to each other at the soccer game of a Spears-Federline offspring. [TMZ]
  • Burgeoning movie star Anthony Mackie was arrested last night in Harlem for suspicion of drunk driving HIS AWESOME NEW FALCON WINGS! No? Just a regular car, then. [CNN]
  • Julia Roberts said a bunch of really nice things about her good friend George Clooney and his habit of saving people from the crushing void of space. [E!]
  • Ben Affleck parked illegally and ate a $58 ticket just so he could get a cup of Starbucks' compressed wood shavings without too long a delay, which is either a testament to our enervated currency or the entitlement of Hollywood's mega wealthy. [TMZ]
  • Prince Harry, Alexander Skarsgard, and Dominic "Bad Guy Eyebrows" West are all getting in shape for a race to the South Pole, which Skarsgard has proposed to do in the nude. [TMZ]
  • Jessica Simpson and Weight Watchers are friends again. [Us]
  • I'm sure everyone is thrilled to hear that Seth MacFarlane will be sidling up to the toilet bowl of network television to take yet another huge dump during primetime. [Vulture]
  • Sandra Bullock was the most favoritest waitress at the cantina she worked at before becoming famous. [Just Jared]
  • In the endless debate about deep dish versus real pizza, Lady Gaga votes one thousand times for deep dish pizza, which, fun fact, really isn't so much pizza as it is puff pastry, and, therefore, disqualified from the pizza debate. [E!]

Image via AP, Andy Wong