We guess Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman’s teenage son, Connor, spent too much time DJing at the Super Bowl pre-party and never made it to the stadium. Otherwise, he might’ve gotten schooled by GLSEN’s “Think B4 U Speak” PSA and not sent a homophobic text to his openly gay publicist Todd Krim.
According to Page Six, Krim poked fun at Connor regarding the Patriots’ loss, tweeting “Sorry @TheConnorCruise maybe next year!!!”
The 17-year-old, a diehard Pats fat, texted back: “That was a gay ass f**king tweet… U don’t say sh*t like that the second they lose. Low.”
Krim (left), who founded the charity Give Back Hollywood and has helped the younger Cruise launch his fledgling DJ career, responded: “Ummm ok… Dude I was f**king joking.” Cruise responded: “That was f**ked / IDGAF [I don’t give a f**k].”
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On Monday, Krim blasted out an e-mail with screenshots of the text to PR colleagues, saying: “I am no longer working with Connor Cruise.” Krim went on to call Cruise’s comments “highly offensive and what I consider homophobic.”
Cruise hasn’t acknowledged the controversy on his Twitter feed but said through a rep to Page Six: “What I texted was unacceptable. It is not a reflection of who I am and what I feel, and it certainly won’t happen again.”
Is that enough of a mea culpa, or do we need to sic GLAAD on Cruise’s ass?
Photos: Twitter, Todd Krim
divkid
send him to a scientology slave labor camp!
Jim
When Daddy’s been a confused homophobe his entire life what do you expect?
TMikel
Please sic GLAAD on his sorry ass. Until Americans learn to think BEFORE they speak, this sort of nonsense will go on and on. There is no excuse for his tweets or his response. He needs to learn that apologizing does not undo what he said.
tj
How about we just continue to ignore him…
Seriously
People take sports way too seriously.
Mike
I have far more important things to worry about than what a silver-spoonfed 17-year-old cult member is tweeting.
paul
He’s 17
Dennis
As sad as it is, fame and celebrity-even tangential-are highly regarded in this country and therefore we need to pay attention to this kid and get him publicly chastised so the millions of kids his age and younger know that what he said was wrong. Agreed, he’s a spoilt rich brat who’s never been told “no” and has a self-hating closeted gay man as a role model but that’s all the more reason we as a community need to reach out to him and show him how the real world should work.
Danny
Well if Krim has any integrity, he’ll drop that client. Otherwise he’s just another Hollywood sellout.
Larry
spoiled child of privilege …wait until suri grows up. daddy ain’t a confused homophobe… he is a confused homo
Caliban
@Danny: Did you miss this part of the article?
On Monday, Krim blasted out an e-mail with screenshots of the text to PR colleagues, saying: “I am no longer working with Connor Cruise.” Krim went on to call Cruise’s comments “highly offensive and what I consider homophobic.”
Rich
@divkid: I thought that’s where Tom and Nicole bought him?
Shannon1981
Yes. Sic GLAAD on him and every homophobic whack that tweets, emails, facebooks, google+’s or anything else homophobic until they get the message that their bigotry is unacceptable.
Zeus
He just sounds like an immature teenager to me. Teenagers still say things are “gay” and get overly emotional/offended over stupid things that adults don’t bat an eyelash at.
stoopid louie
Jesus Christ, he’s a KID. And everyone’s out to ruin him because he used the word “gay”?
Shannon1981
@Zeus: @stoopid louie: Kid or not it was offensive and he has a platform of influence from which to speak. The fact that kids say things are “gay” all the time in a negative manner is not ok.
Daez
Teenagers simply don’t see the word gay to ONLY mean love between a man and a man. It has another meaning for them. It simply means bad. Words are ALLOWED to have more than one meaning. Hell, the word gay already has multiple meanings. Its the evolution of words. Just because he used gay doesn’t mean he believes that all men that like men should be shipped off to camps or done in. We need to end the PC movement. It doesn’t do anyone any good.
JayKay
Nothing wrong with what he said. Stow the PC outrage, liberals.
Marie Cohn
That reminds us: what is the BIOLOGICAL origin of lil’ Connor? Enquiring minds want to know . . .
Mike UK
@Daez: thanks to a fat arsehole we have on the radio over here in the UK anything that is bad is now associated with the word “gay”! he started saying it on his daily radio show about 4 or 5 years ago and it’s spread like wildfire! anything that is bad is usually followed by the words “that is well gay”!
B
No. 7 · paul wrote, “He’s 17”
In a somewhat parallel situation, some conservative French politician was once asked about his communist son. The politician replied by saying, “Monsieur, my son is 21 years old. If he were not a communist, I would disown him. If he is still a communist when he is 30, I will disown him then.”
QJ201
nice parenting Tommy Girl.
Your son could go to any damn college in the entire world thanks to your millions, but his goal in life is to be a DJ…using the family name to get gigs. Loser.
marksdn
@stoopid louie: I just think everyone is going over the top here. He’s a kid, point out to him that he needs to watch his statements like that being a “celeb” and be more careful in the future….
Evan Mulvihill
@Marie Cohn: Adopted.
divkid
i wonder what the brat’s e-meter reading would tell us… this: fucking awfull parenting. not such a shiny advert for scientology family life are you tommyboy!
@Rich: lol. now your a Supressive Person — they’re coming for you!
EdWoody
Unfortunately he’s only doing what so many other teenagers do – not thinking. It genuinely doesn’t occur to them that calling something “gay” might be considered a bad thing – gay as in “homosexual” absolutely does not occur to them in that moment. If they actually stopped to think about it, they would probably not bear any malice towards the LGBT community, but they DON’T stop to think.
Connor has now had this discrepancy pointed out to him, and has learned the lesson the hard way. I don’t think he will forget it.
Granted he was particularly idiotic and thoughtless to make this comment to an actual openly gay person who is responsible for promoting his career, such as it is. That demonstrates the level of inconsideration these kids are working under. He made a stupid mistake, as all kids do. Adolescence is exactly the time of life to be making mistakes and learning from them. Unfortunately for kids these days, their mistakes are made on the internet for the whole world to see. And the whole world will tell them off for it, instead of just their parents or a random stranger on the bus.
All the more reason to learn your lesson before you get a publicist.
SteveC
How many years has it been since Nicole Kidman saw this kid I wonder?
Allegedly she had to give up custody of their 2 adopted kids, before Xenu allowed her to dissolve her contract with Tom Cruise.
Lady Haha
@JayKay: And what if he tweeted about something being “nigger” or “spic”? Would that be okay since he’s ‘just a kid’?
nikko
@Shannon1981: Exactly. Don’t be stoopid, stupid Louie. =”#comment-562259″>JayKay:
nikko
@JayKay: Bullshit. He used the word gay because he believes gay is something bad and therefore uses it as a slur, disrespecting his agent. Why else would gay be used to denote something bad if the majority of people uses it as a slur? Do you see everyone using the word “breeder” or straight” to denote that heterosexuality is bad? No? Why not? You know the answer, bigot.
christopher di spirito
Connor was raised a Scientologist and the Xenu crowd don’t cotton to queers.
Cam
“” “That was a gay ass f**king tweet… U don’t say sh*t like that the second they lose. Low.”””
_____________________
These celeb families are so spoiled and sick that they can’t even take one comment that they don’t like without over reacting.
And of COURSE Cruis’s kid is homophobic, they were raised in Scientology.
Shannon1981
@nikko: Yep, all we have to do is look at that 14 year old girl who asked for a gay marriage ban in her state for her birthday to know that this kind of thing is more than just a mistake. They associate “gay” with “bad.” Letting stuff like this slide is simply validating them. Now, I’ll be emailing GLAAD right now. There is that and a few other things I need to bring to their attention anyway.
Oh, ok.
@stoopid louie: No, they want to ruin him because he’s black. I’m sure his parents haven’t taught him about how black people are treated differently in American no matter how much time has passed since slavery.
White celebrities can make homophobic and racist commentary all day and the usual response is still thinking that person is hot, ignoring it, or pretending race doesn’t exist if said person is white.
On the article about a CHILD’s comment we already see slavery has been used to insult him, his birth to bring it back to race, and his ethnicity.
So as you can see just from these random comments black people are treated differently from white people even on something as simple as homophobia which all people of all colors are guilty of. When black people do it it’s somehow the worst thing ever said and white people are free to retaliate with racism and vicious slurs.
Shannon1981
@christopher di spirito: I find it odd that a religion with such outrageous beliefs is homophobic. I mean the whole 13 trillion years ago Xenu shit? Really? And they think queers are mentally ill?
divkid
is it wrong to wish he gets the thetan shit beat out of him by some spirited 17yr old gay kid who then sneers: “that’s sooo scientology” ?
yes, probably.
Oh, ok.
@divkid: Do you reserve that hatred for all 17 year olds who say things like this or just the black ones?
Darren
I know I’m going against the grain here, but a 17y/o kid calling something a “gay ass tweet” is not a homophobic comment. It’s not exactly a PC comment, and he should have someone explain to him why it’s wrong, but it’s not exactly newsworthy.
ltwm
@Daez:
are you fucking kidding???? it is the very meaning of homophobic to use gay as a general perjorative. when i was a kid gay wasnt even in general usage but faggy was used exactly the same way. homphobic and nothing else. we’re not beyond it.
TASTEY GOODIES
This is the SECOND time I will repeat this. FROM NOW ON I WILL REPLY “THAT IS SOOO STRAIGHT!” when ANYONE says “That is sooo gay!” I am soo sick and tired to the point of being ad naseum when I hear that comment. I really don’t give a F%$K that it “offends” the breeders. They have been doing this shit for YEARS and this abuse WILL NOT stand. Sistete nunc! Stop in now! (Latin traslation). So that is a “straight ass fucking tweet” for a fucktard that takes the retard cake!!!! so how do you like them apples!!!!
divkid
@Oh, ok.: right, your a troll that’s obvious. your probably a white rascist trying to stir up division. or just REALLY bored. so this is the first and last time i’ll address you.
1 )apropos the mention of slavery i assume you mean to implicate me (comment no. 1). however, i mentioned scientology slave labor camp. not the same thing at all. no. (it exists, google it ). so piss poor effort there then mate.
2) you won’t believe me — as it doesn’t suit your present aims; but that matters not — but i only google-imaged him a few minutes ago and saw he was indeed black. if i ever thought about him, let alone his ethnicity — and i didn’t — i assumed for some reason (why? who knows) that he was chinese.
on learning that last point the rest of your “argument” disintegrates so no further response is required nor merited.
Owen
You hypocrites. A 17 year boy of famous parents does no damage by using the word gay, yet when Queerty dares to accuse Bomer of hiding his family, which he does, which hurts gays even more you bitch bitch bitch. You should be ashamed of yourselves.
KyleW
Personally I could give a damn if he used the word “gay”. I would shun him because he sounds like an overly sensitive, rude little bitch (no insult to women or female dogs) who gets abusive to his supporters for a friendly joke about his team losing.
Just how long is the correct amount to allow for post game mourning loser?
Oh, ok.
@divkid: My post was so racist and troll worthy. Try harder.
randy
Sure he’s only 17. And if he were any other 17 year old, I’d certainly give him a pass.
But’s he’s not. They kid has every advantage other kids don’t have merely because of he chose the right parents. And you can bet he uses his parents to get a leg up on every one else. No doubt he throws his weight around LA as Cruise’s son to get gigs and babes and drugs and everything else he wants in life.
With priviledges like that, you also get responsibility. And if he wants to live life in the public arena like his dad, then his dad should sit him down and tell him he is not going to judged like any other 17 year old in the country. Precisely bECAUSE he isn’t like every other 17 year old.
In other words, if you want the perks of celebrity, then you damn well better play by the rules of celebrity. You can’t have it both ways and get all the perks but then you get to hide when you do something stupid
Don’t like it? Then move to Kansas and change your name, and live like the rest of us who struggle to make a name for ourselves. If you don’t want to ride Daddy’s coattails to fame, then you can do it like everyone else. And then I’ll be happy to cut you slack.
Oh, ok.
@randy: Oh please.
I see privileged white kids openly expressing homophobia all over LA and no one says a word to them. Once exiting a movie in Culver City two guys in their early 20s or late teens were saying “Fag” and “Gay” every 2 seconds, no one said a damned thing to them.
Kids like this run all over town including in West Hollywood spouting off at the mouth with “fag” and “gay” and no one says a thing.
Big talk on the internet. Funny how in real life I don’t see anyone saying anything.
The only difference between this kid and the usual suspects is his skin is brown. Apparently if a black kid is adopted he’s not really their child…yet they raised him for 17 years. Hmm…
the crustybastard
Yeah, I would only be surprised if Tom Cruise’s teenage son was NOT a homophobic moron.
casey
@Daez: the fact you admit that using the word “gay” to a teenager is the same as saying “bad” is POINT ENOUGH to call him out on it. I’m sick and tired of my life being used to describe BAD things in life. It’s not.
Brand
When some anonymous 17-year-old uses the word “gay” they are indeed using a homophobic slur, and they do indeed know it is a homophobic slur, and 17-year-olds—in fact, even 10-year-olds—have known this consistently since at least the ’70s. But for the anonymous 17-year-old, it is just a sad fact of how pervasive and damaging hate speech is among the youth of our country. It is a statement about society in general.
When it is a 17-year-old who is the child of famous people—and/or people noted for pious pseudo-religious micromanaging criticism of other people they don’t even know—both of which is the case here, then it becomes a reflection on one way these parents and this religion is falling short. The same would be true if the family were Catholics or Lutherans or Jews or Muslims or Mormons or Animists or Atheists, frankly, as plenty of Atheists act like their approach inherently decouples from centuries or millennia of reinforcement of prejudices et al. Yes, bad kids happen to good people, yes this is less surprising in the case of adoption, and no, good parenting and a loving religion are not a panacea for a hateful, hurtful and backward society, but then maybe facing that fact should make a prominent parent more humble about their family and less judgmental about other people and their kids. It is a statement about piety and judgement and parenting and religion.
When it is a 17-year-old who is a member of an historically recently persecuted minority, it shows a lack of perspective and a lack of empathy for others. Minorities are notoriously less accepting than others, because they struggled to become assimilated or just climb up to the first or second rung and get off the very bottom of the shit list, and now they’re not going to slum among the poor sots who are still disenfranchised, they’re going to aspire to show how above those groups they are and how they deserve to be in the exclusive group and excluding the other groups. That’s not to say it’s worse than prejudice by the majority, but it may be a little more ironic. Sad but true, it is a statement about how the U.S. is increasingly less and less the classless society it has liked to pretend it is, how there is a pecking order, and how each new wave of minorities can often be more scared and miseducated into prejudice than the average person.
When it is a 17-year-old with a publicist, it’s ridiculous to suggest he doesn’t need to be guided in how to publicly, thoroughly and convincingly make amends, and that if he doesn’t do this (which is more than an eye for an eye and a Tweet for a Tweet) it should harm his career. That’s the whole point of having a publicist. You want to play with the big boys, you’re going to get torn apart if you’re not a big boy yourself, and big boys don’t publish hate speech. That’s right, a Twitter feed might just as well be a blog or a newsletter or a radio or TV talk show or a magazine or a newspaper or a hardcover book. The fact that this particular technology’s approach removes any and every ability to self-edit or be edited by someone with your best interests at heart (before the damage is done) says something about the dangerous and harmful potential of the technology—dangerous and harmful to the people you are talking about, to oneself for talking that way, and to society at large for being immersed in this. But it says more about who is and who isn’t really ready to put themselves and their thoughts before the public. Some will forgive someone for being 17, but then again some would forgive a 40-year-old and an 80-year-old, too. Others will reserve their forgiveness until such time as they can see the person’s actions and behavior and words show a marked maturity. And of course some will like the 17-year-old all the more for dispensing homophobic comments directly to the object of his derision, and find the departure of the publicist good riddance.
And that is the point of having an opinion about this sort of thing, not because it’s this particular kid (whom I’d never heard of until this bit of ugliness) or his parent is that particular bigoted star, but because we cannot simply brush this off every time it happens as if it doesn’t mean anything. I’m not saying we have to get all riled up and be personally offended and launch major campaigns against individual people, but I’m saying this is the pervasive approach the other side is using to indoctrinate the youth with hate and to take the attacks on a group of people to a level where it becomes cool, where it becomes habit, where it becomes nearly subconscious. When someone can verbally attack you and neither they nor you even register it as an attack, well, that’s not being harmless on their part and easy-going on ours, that’s buying into the pervasive culture of matter-of-fact, wall-to-wall sadomasochism and disenfranchisement.
There are a million things in the world far, far worse than this, both that have to do with us as gay people and that have to do with the world in general. And forgiveness is a virtue, healthier and more meaningful to the person who can truly forgive another than to the person they have forgiven, despite how many people hold onto resentments and blame as if it’s harming the other guy and not yourself. I’m reminded of Socrates’ “The unexamined life is not worth living”, and would extend that to say when we fail to honestly examine life from various perspectives, we are diminishing the lives of those who are harmed or even killed or driven to suicide by the things we happen to be strong enough to live with or manage to avoid. Gays living in denial are not limited to those desperately closeted folks; just as harmful are we who are out in the open but giving our top-of-the-head, knee-jerk responses to everything, or for that matter ignoring most things, failing to give any deep thought or take any responsibility to contribute what we uniquely bring to, and what we uniquely receive from, society.
Mrs. Robinson
The product of heterosexual, divorced parents.
DonsterNYC
Typical Holywood brat (yes, another generation of them) that seems incapable of realizing they are biting the hand that feeds. Krim was actually trying to give the kid a boost and this is how he is repaid. So sad. Apparently Tom was so concerned about keeping the closet door tightly shut that it rendered him incapable of teaching his son that these homophobic slurs are unacceptable–you know, like OMG what if my son should think I’m gay, too.
a.e.hainsworth
Why does the kid have a publicist?
mrh3
I think that Krim’s response was overblown. Krim sounds like a super uptight power bottom and they are the worst kind of gay. Conner’s tweet did not directly impact Krim’s reputation or livelihood, unlike Krim’s vicious response. It’s probably a good thing that they separated because Conner can find someone better. In the end Krim loses this battle because I’m sure he needed the money/contacts more than his client.
Shaya
He’s ONLY 17 YEARS OLD. These words are no big deal in today’s culture. Those who are crying about this being bad need to go sue south park and other media who influence this type of culture, not the children.
use your brains people, krim over reacted like the joke that he is. If he was so offended by these widely used phrases he would’ve been all up on south park by now.
james_from_cambridge
He can’t be that homophobic. Remember folks, his dad is gay as fuck.
FYI
I wonder how “anti-PC” the enablers on Queerty would be if someone had used a once commonly voiced slur in regards to someone cheating another person, such as: “Hey, what are you trying to do…Jew me down or something?”
To use “that’s soooo gay” as a synonym for stupid or disgusting or bad is no different that using the legitimate ethnic nomenclature, Jew, as a slur.
Get over your grovelling and enabling bullshit excuses for rationalizing socially unacceptable behavior just to make yourself look “cool” or to “fit in”. I suppose some of you wimps think “Pollock jokes” are good clean fun too.
Morons.
wow
I think you morons’ problem is with today’s society and the youth and not just this young man.
Your life must be miserable to sit on that chair all day and complain about things instead of doing anything about it. Krim is an over-senstive loser who is using you sheep as tools for his own publicity, now get that through your thick thick skulls.
Hephaestion
Connor Cruise is a kid who needs to learn that “gay ass” is inappropriate language. Krim was right to dump him. He needs to learn that actions ALWAYS have consequences.
nikko
@wow: You and SHAYA are pathetic. You just don’t get it, do you? FYI siad it best. “free speech” has consequences. According to your logic, we should all use slurs freely with no consequences, like nigger, jew, etc. Words have meaning and they can reinforce and cause suffering. Get THAT through your thick, insensitive skulls.
Danny
@Daez Based on your argument, a group can select any word for another group such as “black” or “latino” or “jewish” and simply give it a “new meaning” with a negative connotation and use it freely that way. That is B.S. supreme with a side of order of crazy. That is plain bigotry.
Jimminy
Speaking of forgiving:
I will never forgive Kelly Rippa for her STOOPID remark to Clay Aiken.
Nor can I forgive Madonna for using “retard” in song lyrics
or that stupid kunt Cheesy Handler for her habitual use of the word “retard”.
She and Whitney Chummings deserve each other.
Jack2211
Since when do 17-year-old boys not talk that way? Jeez, I’m gay and I used the word gay like that when I was 17. It’s possible the guy’s sexuality didn’t enter his mind. Sounds like a bit of an overeaction from the publicist, and an odd move to tease his client on Twitter in the first place…
B
No. 60 · Danny wrote, “@Daez Based on your argument, a group can select any word for another group such as “black” or “latino” or “jewish” and simply give it a “new meaning” with a negative connotation and use it freely that way.”
You mean like what happened to the word “hacker”? In the 1970s (possibly earlier) and the early 1980s, it referred to compulsive programmers – people who could get things done quickly, often by taking sections from other programs and stitching them together. Then with personal computers becoming affordable, teenagers started breaking into corporate systems, sometimes protected by 3-character passwords. The press was up in arms and started calling these kids “hackers”, much to the annoyance of people who had previously used that term – reporters had seen the term “hacker” and simply didn’t bother to find out what it actually meant as it sounded malicious to them.
nikko
@Jack2211: That doesn’t make it(and you) right for using the word gay in a derogatory manner.
GregR
What does that even mean? “That was a gay ass f*cking tweet”? Was it a slur? A gay ass f*cking tweet. It makes no sense. Connor Cruise sounds like an idiot. It would just make me wonder why he has gay on the brain. Then he says it’s not a reflection of who he is and what he feels. Then why did you say it you dope? What a big baby. You don’t say that the second the Patriots lose. Oh Boo Hoo. The Patriots lost. Big deal. It’s all so stupid the way people go on about football and basketball and baseball. Like it matters who wins the championship. Yay they won! Then we have stupid Connor Cruise tweeting idiotic comments over a stupid game. I would have done the same thing if I was the publicist. It was just disrespectful. Connor was upset like he was personally involved with the game. Grow up you fool.
Oh, ok.
So much bitching over something a child said on the internet. You people need lives.