Everyone has an embarrassing celebrity crush.
Amanda's is Michael Showalter a.k.a. Sean Penn.
Nicole's is Dave Matthews.
Mine is Tom Cruise.
I know, I know. He's crazy. I get it — he has the crazy virus. And when he became infected, my heart broke just a little.
My love for him started with "Top Gun." You see, my dad was an F16 Air Force fighter pilot and I recall many nights watching this on the couch.
"It's not actually like this," my dad would say. His pilot training was harder and those Navy dudes were wimps.
But alas, I was memorized by the Cruise. No matter that we were the same height when I was in middle school.
I fell in love.
I've cried during "Cocktail." I've taken a picture with his star in Hollywood. I've even been to the house where the romance scene in "Top Gun" took place.
Yep, I attended a Fourth of July barbeque there when I was like 10. It was badass.
In high school, I found out my (male and straight) calculus teacher owned every Cruise movie and we shared a fantastic bond. He also loved Scrabble.
And then it happened.
Cruise divorced Nicole Kidman. (Really? Can you get much better than that?) He went nuts on Brooke Shields about post-partum depression. And then there was that interview with Matt Lauer.
"Glib."
Anyway, the moral of the story is Cruise is a bit mad these days.
And while I will only partially blame Scientology, the Anonymous hacker group is taking advantage of the star's mishap publicity.
In January. the famous video of Cruise passionately talking up the religion came out. But instantly, Scientology said it was a copyright infringement and demanded its removal from sites like YouTube and Google Video.
Anonymous claimed the religion's act was a suppression of free speech. So they started Project Chanology — the group's own protest against Scientology.
In this week's cover story "Unmasking Scientology," writer Christina Caldwell tagged along with the Phoenix division of Anonymous (page 18).
On March 15, the group protested Scientology in its "Ides of March" picket outside of the religion's Phoenix headquarters.
Scientology refuses to acknowledge Anonymous.
And even though he has the crazy, I still melt every time I see the cover for "Vanilla Sky."
Reach the reporter at: celeste.sepessy@asu.edu.
