Tom Cruise Did Not Claim That Acting Is as Tough as Combat - the Lead With Jake Tapper Blogs
Sloppy reporting by the celebrity news website TMZ has created the latest demonstrably false Internet meme — that actor Tom Cruise believes acting is as hard as fighting in Afghanistan.
He never said it. In fact, he said quite the opposite.
Cruise is suing Bauer Publishing for libel, after a Bauer publication said Cruise had abandoned his daughter, Suri, whose mother is Katie Holmes. TMZ writers read a deposition given in the case and managed to totally fuck up a summary of it.
Cruise’s attorney suggested that an actor filming on location was in a similar position as a soldier serving in combat abroad — neither can quickly leave his job to attend family events, such as Suri’s first day of school. Bauer’s attorney questioned Cruise about this comparison.
“Now your counsel has publicly equated your absence from Suri for these extended periods of time as being analogous to someone fighting in Afghanistan,” opposing counsel asks him. “Are you aware of that?”
“I didn’t hear the Afghanistan,” Cruise replies. “That’s what it feels like and certainly on this last movie it was brutal. it was brutal.”
“Do you believe that the situations are the same?” Cruise is asked.
“Oh come on,” Cruise says, “you know, we’re making a movie.”
In other words, Cruise was scoffing at the opposing counsel’s suggestion that combat overseas is the same as filming on location. Yet, TMZ writers managed to misconstrue the entire exchange to put words in Cruise’s mouth that he in fact never said.
Oh, and that guy that 60 Minutes featured? You know, the guy who said he scaled a 12-foot wall at the Benghazi compound and fought off terrorists singlehandedly, like a real-life James Bond?
He never did it. It was all a lie.
TMZ and CBS News — birds of a feather. Ed Murrow is spinning in his grave.