Controversial celebrity interviews are quite common in the industry. Among all the stars, Tom Cruise has a very high position on the list whose 2005 interview with Matt Lauer attracted massive criticism. The Mission Impossible fame argued on the importance of antidepressants and psychiatry which is subjected to several discussions even today.
The interview of the 60-year-old actor with Matt Lauer is held as one of the hottest celebrity interactions to date. Tom Cruise’s remarks didn’t take any time to catch widespread attention and divide his entire fanbase. He received major backlash due to his words on Brooke Shields who had to take antidepressants to help her deal with postpartum depression in 2003.
What did Tom Cruise state in the 2005 interview with Matt Lauer?
The interview which became such a hot topic of discussion wasn’t intended to follow that path. Centering around Tom Cruise‘s War of the Worlds, the interview took quite a surprise turn from the area of movies into controversial grounds when the topic of Brooke Shields was raised by the host of the Today show Matt Lauer.
The conversation grew around how Brooke Shields‘ postpartum depression forced her to take antidepressants after she gave birth to her daughter in 2003. After that what followed is a series of statements by Cruise that is still held unprofessional by many. The ambassador of the Church of Scientology claimed that after being a Scientologist, he understood more and more about psychiatry.
“I think [Shields] is a wonderful and talented woman, and I want to see her do well. And I know that psychiatry is a pseudoscience.”
After that when the host described more about Shields’ past situation, Tom Cruise stood strong with his point that not many people including Lauer don’t know how these antidepressants work. He also lost his cool and repeatedly accused the lawyer of not having any knowledge about psychiatry.
“Here’s the problem, you don’t know the history of psychiatry. I do. All it does is mask the problem. That’s what it does. That’s all it does. You’re not getting to the reason why. There is no such thing as a chemical imbalance.”
The Top Gun also asked the host if he had any idea about Adderall and Ritalin- “Do you know what Adderall is? Do you know Ritalin? Do you know now that Ritalin is a street drug?” As the interview attracted eyeballs, the fans observed how Cruise has shown unprofessional behavior toward the host whom he repeatedly accused of incomplete knowledge. The star didn’t believe when Matt Lauer revealed to him that he knew some people who benefitted from Ritalin.
While some fans deemed Tom Cruise’s knowledge in the field of psychiatry to be impressive, some criticized him, blaming his statements to be Scientology ideologies. But surprisingly, the feud between Cruise and his Endless Love co-star came to an end when the former apologized to her.
How did Tom Cruise and Brooke Shield’s feud come to an end?
As stated by Brooke Shields, it was in 2006 when the Ethan Hunt star called her to meet and solve everything between them. When she broke the whole incident on the Sirius XM show, it was evident that the Blue Lagoon actress didn’t expect Tom Cruise to call her.
“He came over to my house. It was funny because when he called me, he said, ‘I’d like to have a sit-down and a talk with you.’ I called my publicist, and I said, ‘OK, what do I do?’ She said, ‘Whatever you do, don’t go over there. Just make them come to you, and it’s on your terms. You don’t have cameras, you don’t know'”
The relationship improved further when Shields also attended Cruise and his ex-wife Katie Holmes’ wedding at the request of the latter. Although the Oblivion actor’s views on psychiatry didn’t change, looks like the actor didn’t let it come between him and Shields despite many people claiming it to be nothing more than a publicity stunt.
Source: YouTube
