Tom Cruise was bashed (newsworthy, we know) last week in Australia, where he was named winner of the “Celebrity Ernie Award” for a supposedly sexist comment that award organizers claim he made. Only he didn’t.
The comment in question, which was allegedly made when fiancée Katie Holmes was pregnant with their possibly-fake daughter, Suri Cruise (now between three and four months old if she is in fact alive):
“I’ve got Katie tucked away so no one will get to us until my child is born,” Cruise said (no, he didn’t).
The quote was named “worst derogatory public statement” by nearly 400 of Australia’s most powerful women who gathered in the New South Wales state parliament last week. But according to Cruise’s rep, the actor, who was in the news last week after being fired by Paramount, did not utter those words or make any such remarks to that effect.
“The comments that they have attributed to him are completely fabricated,” his representative said. “Anyone who knows him knows that he is a complete gentleman and would never ever say such a thing… He has the utmost respect for women.”
Research shows that, indeed, Cruise never made such a statement.
“His mother, his sisters, Kate and his children are the most important things in the world to him. Women have always played a positive and important role in who he is,” his rep added.
How nice that TomKat respects women. The Ernie Awards, now in their 14th year, were named after a trade union leader called Ernie whose union members included sheep shearers. He once said: “Women aren’t welcome in the shearing sheds. They’re only after the sex.”