Indiana University graduate student Ian Williams made headlines this week after receiving a $4 million grant from the Center for Cultural Studies to untangle the fascinatingly twisted web of rumors surrounding the Tom Cruise-Katie Holmes romance. While some have called the grant ludicrously frivolous, many others expressed relief that somebody else would be figuring this crazy shit out for them.
“Thank God,” sighed IU Professor Richard Luxborough. “I got so confused thinking about this last week I almost threw up. Is he gay? Are they really in love? And what’s with that crazy motherfucker jumping all over the couch like that? Every answer just spawns a hundred new questions. I wish Ian the best in his research; I think his quantum physics minor is really going to be put to the test on this one.”
“Any high school kid who wrote their term paper on this topic knows the basics,” explained a cocky Williams, well versed in TomKat lore thanks to the celebrity blog/Access Hollywood/ street-level trash talk research he did in preparing his grant proposal. “Tom was having a steamy homo affair with Rob Thomas, Matchbox-20’s bisexual lead singer, only to be caught with his pants down by Rob’s wife Marisol. She was bought off by Cruise for over $10 million and the promise that she’d never have to listen to Matchbox-20 again. But Cruise’s people still had to act fast and get Cruise’s name stamped on some vagina before another damaging gay rumor hit the street.”
“And of course that’s where Katie comes in,” continued Williams. “But what most high-schoolers don’t know, unless they read my blog, is that Katie wasn’t the first choice of Tom’s people. She wasn’t Tom’s first choice either, but he wanted Antonio Banderas so that’s neither here nor there. Tom’s people made up a list of B-list actresses who might jump at the chance to boost their careers and pick up a little coin via a sham fag-hag wedding. Number one on their list was Jessica Alba, but they couldn’t get through to her without resorting to ‘stamp once for yes’ communication tricks. Next they wanted Jennifer Garner, but she had this weird Ben Affleck smell on her that kept making Tom sneeze.”
“So the mantle fell to Lindsay Lohan,” Williams elaborated, drawing a crowd of eager eavesdroppers. “But then it turned out she’d lost so much weight recently that when she turns sideways she almost disappears, like some weird X-Files villain, and that was freaking Tom out at night. Scarlett Johansson seemed like a safe bet after that, but then Tom started talking about Scientology and she ran like a startled deer, leading to an unfortunate but action-packed escape sequence, some of the footage from which reportedly is going to turn up in this summer’s The Island. Sofia Vergara was next on the list, followed by Kate Bosworth, but Tom didn’t know who either of them was, and this got him all excited about being gal-pals with Sofia Coppola or possibly hooking up with former football stud Brian Bosworth, so they wisely dropped both of those. Finally it fell to poor little Katie, who cashed in at $5 million for five years with the contract stipulation that she’ll never, ever have to see Cruise’s penis, which is a better deal than either of Michael Jackson’s wives ever got.”
“And Katie’s actually been playing the role fairly well,” raved Williams. “That story about her growing up with a Tom Cruise poster on her wall was brilliant.” According to Williams, Holmes’ childhood bedroom also featured posters of the rock band Guns ‘N’ Roses and the horse from The Black Stallion, which doesn’t bode well for Holmes’ future relationships should the marriage pact with Cruise ever fall victim to downsizing.
Strange as the story may seem to normal humans, veteran rumor-mongers find it excitingly plausible.
“Fans have been in denial of Cruise’s gayness ever since Top Gun,” gushed legendary New York gossip columnist Dr. Dish. “Quentin Tarantino was right, that movie was gay on fire. I don’t care how many times he plays some dude driving a minivan in some movie now; I ain’t buying it after that one. Forget homoerotic overtones, that thing was turned up to Gay 11. That thing was all ate up with gayness.”
Dr. Dish also points to persistent rumors that Cruise’s relationships with Nichole Kidman and Penelope Cruz were both contractual affairs, providing the then-obscure actresses with money, a career boost and lavish lifestyles while acting as a smokescreen for Cruise’s long-term relationship with an Asian American Airlines pilot he has stashed away in Chicago. And we mean the pilot is Asian, not that there’s a new airline called Asian-American Airlines. Weird.
Though only slightly less convoluted than the saga of Area 51, the TomKat rumors would help explain the speed of the couple’s courtship, as well as Cruise’s frenzied and bizarre attempts to keep his recent engagement in the headlines. Veteran rumor-whores also recognize a familiar pattern in the Church of Scientology’s involvement, since the red hot rumor of the mid-90’s was that church wranglers were working overtime to conceal long-time church member John Travolta’s hyper-promiscuous gayness.
“That’s outside my area of expertise,” Williams said when asked for the scoop on the Travolta rumor. “I did my undergrad work on Richard Gere, which frankly doesn’t do me a hell of a lot of good now.”