No one is afraid anymore of Tom Cruise and his Church of Scientology disciples, or his army of lawyers.
The National Enquirer came out with a front page story this past week blaring, “Tom’s Secret Gay Life Exposed!” and Cruise’s pit bull lawyer Bert Fields didn’t, as he is wont to do, denounce it as a pack of lies and vow to sue.
Instead, there was silence.
The Enquirer story is based on a reading of “The Actress,” the roman à clef by Brooklyn novelist Amy Sohn that I first reported on in May.
The heroine (who resembles Katie Holmes) marries a Hollywood movie star (a cross between Cruise and George Clooney) who is dogged by gay rumors.
“Tom is fit to be tied,” one “insider” supposedly told the weekly scandal sheet. “He is upset when fabricated stories about him are published as if they were the truth.”
Two years ago, when Cruise and Holmes broke up, the headlines on the Enquirer front page trumpeted, “Inside Tom’s House of Horrors! The Abuse. Punishments. Humiliation.” It turned out to be the tab’s best-selling cover of 2012.
Back then, Fields immediately released a letter saying he would sue over the “disgraceful and lurid” story. “Mr. Cruise is certainly not a ‘monster.’ He is a caring father, a hardworking actor and, above all, an honest, decent man.”
The lawyer also sued Life & Style for $50 million after the supermarket weekly reported he had “abandoned” his daughter, Suri. Fields called the story “a disgusting, vicious lie.” The case was settled last year.
But Fields had nothing to say Friday when I contacted his office about the Enquirer story. It could be a fatigue factor, after so many years of battling the rumor-mongers. Or maybe Cruise is starting to realize that very few people care whom he sleeps with. If he’s in a good movie, we’ll go see it.