We Won't Be Fooled Again

That's the ongoing mantra of the haters. Keith Urban played those sweet innocent women out of their money, time, and devotion and Nicole Kidman is a player too. Ahhh, but it is the haters that have been played. You see, this is about the latest Nicole Kidman "news". And make no mistake, the word news was put in quotes for a reason. Rumor has it that Kidman used her birthday to pay tribute to her father, and how he got her through her painful divorce from Tom Cruise.

Has anyone out there noticed what this blog has? The "reporting" came from Contact Music. And after Contact put it out, tens of hundreds of *cough* news sites *cough* reposted it, some in edited form. A sampling includes news.absolutely.net, slice.ca, thehimalayantimes, thetimesofindia. Never heard of them? Yeah us neither.

Here's where it gets more interesting. In doing the final research for this piece, we discovered some sites are claiming Kidman talked to the Daily Mail, and not Contact. The original source is still a mystery.

But here's what isn't. Both the Daily Mail and Contact Music are UK based. Both are tabloid style media companies. Internet readers know all about Contact Music because their favorite pastime is cutting and pasting old articles and making them new again. Both the Daily Mail and Contact have had libel suits against them. As a judge of their credibility, let this blog remind you Contact Music published that ridiculous Vietnam adoption story. So did the Mail. Fans, we cannot be fooled.

And the final interesting piece of the puzzle....

A similar "Kidman loves father" story came out in 2007. Nicole is grateful for her father and on and on. It seems the 2009 story is a reworking of the 2007 story. And of course, the original source of the 2007 interview can't be pinned down. Some sites credit it to the The Catholic Herald, a UK publication. The interview cannot be found on their site, but there is a lukewarm review of "Australia". Hmmmm.

Would anyone like to wager on the probability of Nicole Kidman calling up a British tabloid publication from NY, while she's busy filming a movie, and telling them about her father? The Catholic Herald interview is entirely more likely and how Contact or The Daily Mail got their inspiration. Yet it wouldn't be beyond them to have fabricated it from some previous anonymous source who fabricated that interview. The truth is Kidman quietly celebrated her birthday during the filming of her movie. She doesn't make a scene like Lindsay Lohan that the tabs can milk. Hubby Urban is off on tour...and there have been no major sightings with the baby, apart from an on-set pic. But the tabs need a story to sell ad space on, so what to do? Invent a new interview, that's whatchya do.

So while you haters blabber on about how Kidman can't let go of Cruise, does the Strategy Of Invention sound familiar to you? Anyone? Anyone?


*******UPDATE******

A couple of things have surfaced since this blog was posted. First, a link was sent to us by an anonymous reader. It's an abridged version of the interview Kidman gave to the Catholic Herald. This is in our eyes a legitimate Catholic site, so there is no reason to question the interview. Possibly the full-length interview was only available in the print version of the CH.

http://www.australiancatholics.com.au/content/view/112/

And secondly, but quite possibly more importantly, an astute Kidman fan noticed a glaring inaccuracy with the Contact/Daily Mail article. In it, Nicole is quoted as saying "Dad's a psychiatrist". That is incorrect. Dr. Antony Kidman is a biochemist and clinical psychologist. He has done much work in the areas of depression and anxiety. He has been an author, lecturer, and head of a university psychology department. He has also used his training to help develop strategies for cancer patients coping with their diagnosis.

We at STS are proud of the Kidman fan that noticed this, and wished we had ourselves!