Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography pdfdrive com

CHAPTER 12
It was just a typical day in the office for TV host Matt Lauer—a real-life rescue
miracle, a car with a mind of its own, and the invasion of Earth by Aliens from
Outer Space. Oh, and a cookie-tasting contest. On June 22, 2005, Matt left his
Westchester home as usual at four-thirty in the morning, arriving in Manhattan
to catch the sunrise. On his way to the NBC studios in Rockefeller Center, he
leafed through his notes for that day’s edition of the Today show. First up was a
heartwarming tale about the rescue of Boy Scout Brennan Hawkins, who had
been missing for four days from his camp in the Utah backwoods. Actress
Lindsay Lohan would be talking about her latest movie, Herbie Fully Loaded,
while actor Tim Robbins was slated to chat about his role in the science fiction
drama War of the Worlds.
After the show wrapped, Matt was scheduled to prerecord an interview with
Tom Cruise about the Spielberg movie. He was relaxed about the upcoming chat
with Cruise; he had interviewed him several times in the past and found Tom,
unlike some Hollywood stars, to be affable and professional. More than that,
Matt was interested in the subject. He and his production team had seen and
enjoyed the movie, and he was keen to explore the themes that visionary author
H. G. Wells had raised in the novel on which the film was based. Matt was well
prepared; after all, he had done the reading.
Before the interview, Lauer met Tom in his dressing room, where the two men
asked about each other’s children. Tom was in top form, chatting animatedly
with NBC’s entertainment reporter Jill Rappaport, as Lauer talked through the
parameters of the interview with Tom’s sister and publicist, Lee Anne DeVette.
Although Tom’s new fiancée was present in the studio, DeVette made it clear
that Katie didn’t want to be brought on set like some prize exhibit; she would
watch Tom from the wings. Other than that, Tom was happy to talk about
anything; just fire away.
Once they were perched on high stools and miked up, Matt introduced his T-
shirted guest and asked wryly if anything interesting had been happening in his
life. Of course, for the last few weeks Tom had been making daily headlines. His
couch jumping, his rapid-fire engagement, and his unprovoked attack on Brooke
Shields had turned him from a bland, self-contained star into a figure of
controversy—and fun—though Tom didn’t get the joke when a TV camera crew
in London shot him with a water pistol before the premiere there of his new

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movie a few days earlier. After the initial banter, Lauer began to explore how
Tom was coping with the heightened publicity. “I’m just living my life, Matt,”
Tom repeated like a mantra.
Finally the gloves came off. As Lauer questioned him about his belief in
Scientology, the actor physically changed, transforming from an easygoing star
to an exasperated preacher, closing his eyes and shaking his head in irritation at
Lauer’s seeming ignorance about his faith, psychiatry, and drugs. “Scientology
is something you don’t understand,” he scolded the TV host, like a schoolteacher
talking to a slow-witted pupil. At that moment Lauer sensed a shift in Tom, the
actor visibly discarding his professional mask as he morphed from polished talk-
show guest to belligerent lecturer. “It was like he couldn’t help himself,” Lauer
told friends afterward. “Like he had been waiting for years and this was his
chance.”
In the end, Lauer was more interested in talking about Tom’s new movie than
the leading man was. Tom launched into what appeared to be a premeditated
harangue on the evils of psychiatry, mixing pity for Brooke Shields and her
medical choices with vitriol against the medical profession. While his sentiments
were not new—the year before he had called for psychiatry to be outlawed—this
time there was a messianic zeal in his diatribe and a patronizing tone toward his
interlocutor: “I have never agreed with psychiatry. Ever. Before I was a
Scientologist, I never agreed with psychiatry, and then when I started studying
the history of psychiatry I began to realize why I didn’t agree with it.”
Just a few minutes earlier he had shrugged off criticism of his behavior by
repeating that he was living his life as he wished. Clearly he did not want to
extend that opportunity to the rest of the world, who were supposed to live by his
values and choices. When Lauer challenged him and asked what was wrong with
Brooke Shields’s choices if they worked for her, Tom evaded the question,
widening the discussion to a familiar Scientology rant against so-called
psychiatric abuses, singling out the involuntary drugging of children: “Do you
know what Adderall is? Do you know Ritalin? Do you know now that Ritalin is
a street drug? Do you understand that?”
In the face of his guest’s hostile tone, the experienced TV host stayed focused
and persistent, politely pointing out that Brooke Shields had made her own
decisions; nothing had been done to her against her will. Shaking his head in
exasperation, Tom went on, “Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt . . . no, you see. Here’s the
problem. You don’t know the history of psychiatry. I do.” Nor, according to
Tom, did Brooke Shields. It was an audacious statement, but Lauer stayed with
the topic, knowing, as he said later, that he was “capturing TV lightning in a
bottle.” The actor argued that drugs merely masked the problem and that the

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solution was vitamins, exercise, and “various things,” effectively Hubbard’s
Purification Rundown.
Then came the killer question, Lauer asking: “If antidepressants work for
Brooke Shields, why isn’t that okay?” Tom replied: “I disagree with it. And I
think that there’s a higher and better quality of life.” He seemed angry, implying
that Matt Lauer did not want him to discuss these important issues. Here was
Tom applying classic Scientology techniques, deflecting intelligent inquiry by
attacking the accuser. He had worked precisely the same trick the previous week
with Australian interviewer Peter Overton, who, like other journalists, had been
forced to spend hours hearing about Tom’s religion before being admitted into
the presence.
When he had asked a perfectly straightforward question about whether Tom
and Nicole Kidman still had a parenting relationship and talked professionally,
Tom snapped, “You’re stepping over a line now.” Then he told him to “put his
manners back in.” Once Overton apologized, Tom continued with the interview
as though nothing had happened. It seemed that Tom’s anger, like much in his
life, was a performance, an act that relied heavily on Hubbard’s strategy of
“always attack the attacker.”
Similarly, with Matt Lauer, Tom used a bogus slight as a tool to deflect
coherent conversation and argument. When the discussion moved on to giving
the drug Ritalin to hyperactive children, Tom accused the TV host of being
“glib”—a loaded word in Scientology connoting a person who skims over a
subject without doing proper research. “You don’t even know what Ritalin is,”
Tom jeered. “You have to evaluate and read the research papers on how they
came up with these theories, Matt. That’s what I’ve done. And you should do
that also . . . you should be a little bit more responsible, Matt.” The tone was
hectoring and condescending, with Tom implying that an influential broadcaster
like Matt should have a better command of important issues. It was almost
unheard-of for a seasoned veteran of the publicity circuit to launch a personal
attack on an interviewer who had effectively invited him into his studio and
given him the opportunity to sell his film and his faith.
By the end of the interview, Lauer knew that he had captured something
interesting, but he wasn’t sure what to make of it. Tom, on the other hand, had
no doubts; he was delighted with his performance. So, too, was his Scientologist
sister. As he later told GQ magazine, “I thought I was pretty restrained. I thought
it was a terrific interview. I wasn’t pissed; I just was intense on wanting to
communicate.” In fact, he was keen to carry on the chat, Tom asking the host if
he had been in touch with Brooke Shields. Then, after giving Matt Lauer his
trademark one-armed hug, he was gone, leaving Matt and his executive producer

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to scramble to edit the tape for airing two days later.
Although it was rumored that significant sections of the interview were left on
the cutting room floor, in reality very little, apart from the occasional repetition,
was omitted. When the interview aired it created a firestorm of debate and
publicity, which was precisely what Tom and fellow Scientology leaders wanted.
If the American public was taken aback by Tom’s outburst, former
Scientologists were even more alarmed: They could see Tom Cruise morphing
into Scientology leader David Miscavige before their eyes. Every jabbing
gesture, each patronizing inflection, every angry remark mirrored a trademark
Miscavige tirade. Tom was speaking with His Master’s Voice. “When I watched
him he sounded exactly like David Miscavige,” observed Karen Pressley, who
had worked closely with the Scientology leader. “It’s almost as if Miscavige has
merged his personality into Tom. It’s scary.”
All over America, other former colleagues of the Scientology leader
independently came to the same conclusion. As a onetime Scientologist who
worked with Miscavige for seven years said, “I swear I was watching David
Miscavige talk. He’s bombastic, certain about what he believes, and never
admits he’s wrong.” Former Scientologist Bruce Hines, who audited Nicole
Kidman, had the same response: “When he was talking about psychiatry, he was
talking like David Miscavige. When Tom Cruise gets overzealous, you are
seeing a reflection of David Miscavige. They are very close, they mirror each
other.”
For those outside Scientology, the Today show outburst was shocking,
prompting more than a thousand responses—three hundred more than a typical
interview with the President. Many berated Tom for the way he spoke to Matt, as
well as for his invective against Brooke Shields. She personally responded in