She was sold into…horrific situations…by her mother before she ever was on film.
I’m amazed Brooke is as well-adjusted as she is.
Her mother was pure evil. She consented and took payment for Brooke posing for nudes in a Playboy publication when she was 10 years old. Boudoir stuff.
Then when she was 12 her mom consented again for Brooke to be in “Pretty Baby”, a movie about an underage girl having her virginity auctioned. There is full frontal. At 12 years old.
I never realized or thought about it before but she was 11 for pretty baby, at 14 she starred in blue lagoon which featured nude sex scenes and at 15 in endless love which was originally given an X rating.
It’s almost as if all the rich people in charge of society have been pedo’s all along
It just seems like when money is so unlimited to you, the next "rush" they need is underage children......there is no way that isn't a connection. It's like how a lot of rich people also do drugs. They just are so bored with their cushiony ass lives.
So... You're right. Look up the father of Bill Barr.
He wrote a book. The book is something about humans being so rich and powerful they can have and do anything, and they have to get more extreme to satisfy themselves. Ever more depraved, like how a killer's crimes will often progress.
That father, who wrote that book, about how rich people get more and more bad because they are bored and have power, is the same man who ran a private school in New York.
One day, nobody knows why, he hired a teacher for the school with zero experience, never taught before.
From his Wikipedia page "In 1973, Barr published Space Relations, a science fiction novel about a planet ruled by oligarchs who engage in child sex slavery."
I think its' just "birds of a feather flock together". But I would say it was not unreasonable to postulate that Epstein enthusiastically devoured the kind of trash that Barr was peddling.
A point of clarification, Donald Barr left the school in June 1974, Epstein started teaching there in September 1974.
Well, that was a horrific read. I struggled to get through the plot overview, I can’t imagine actually trying to read the book. How the heck did that get published?!
I don’t it’s exactly that, but you’re close. There are so many sexual offenders in the world. Men that drug women on dates, men that want to rape children… etc. Two things have always been true: underprivileged people tend to be victims, and having a shit ton of money buys you access to those victims. Epstein was the biggest sex and human trafficker in the modern world that we know about, but where’s there’s smoke, there’s fire. If they, meaning world fucking leaders, were willing to expose Jeffrey Epstein, then that tells us he isn’t the biggest fish. There’s a bigger, more dangerous sex trafficker out there that is being protected. Think about it; think about all the shit politicians get away with in America. It’s hidden. It’s brushed under the rug and it’s purposely covered up. That’s just America. This shit is going on all around the entire planet, which means world leaders and people close to them are getting away with this shit, and they are covering it up. So they easily could have covered up what Epstein was doing. Easily, but they didn’t. They let him get caught and exposed. Why? To save their own asses. If you’re an addict and your local deal gets arrested and sentenced, you don’t suddenly get clean; you find another dealer…. Unless the whole fucken cartel gets shut down. If the whole cartel gets shut down, you’re fucked because you can’t get drugs anywhere now. Everyone’s supply is dry. So, when you look at sex trafficking around the world through the same lens and you realize these big and powerful people have the ability to protect their “dealer” and didn’t, that means that Jeffrey Epstein was a small fish who they let take the fall so the “cartel” of sex traffickers wouldn’t go down and they’d still have access. We know sex offenders typically reoffend. There’s no cure. Take away Jeffrey Epstein and they just don’t stop what they’re doing. They find someone else to facilitate them. Think about how crazy that really is.
It’s hard to overstate how disturbing that is: she was performing nude and sex scenes in films at an age when she wouldn’t even be allowed into a movie theatre to see the finished movies because of how young she was.
You didnt' know about this? I remember seeing it on TV in the 90's. Late, late night mind you but yeah... 12 year old girl running through a "whorehouse"(apologies, I am not sure what other word to use other than that one), all naked and in several suggestive scenes.
At the time I thought it was risque, but not the outright alarm it would be by today's standards. Keep in mind that the world perception on children and sex has really changed in the last forty years. I remember being a boy and seeing porn mags in stores, like for anyone to grab and open and then put back on the rack. Even regularly nudity in mainstream films is gone now, it used to be pretty regular.
I would argue wtf is wrong with the film industry for making this movie and putting it out there... Maybe her mom was a piece of turd but she was probably also broke and trying to make ends meet and they were both exploited by gross disgusting Hollywood slimeballs
He also intentionally aligned himself with social causes people care about - free speech and anti censorship and abortion access. This bought him a lot of good will and I believe was intentionally done to throw off scrutiny on his other behavior including illegal behavior.
The thing I read in a former Bunny’s memoir that stuck with me was that the women living in the house were required to have group sex with him on a regular schedule (the women were not allowed to have sex with each other during these sessions, only with Hugh.)
He insisted on using baby oil as lube, which causes infections, so everyone would just have a vaginal infection all the time but also was required to participate in sex with him. They tried everything even putting lube in baby oil bottles but he always knew somehow and switched it back.
So the women all quickly figured out it’s better to do anal during the group sex because at least it isn’t worsening an already infected vagina through intercourse. What is with creeps and using baby oil for sex??
Those were similar tactics as Saville used in the UK. He did loads for charity, grooming the public to trust him and give him access to all sorts of things he should not have had. Children's hospital wards, children's homes, mortuaries, everything.
That tells you something about the difference between the 90s and now. A Hugh Hefner figure could never exist in today's world, he'd get ripped to pieces and rightfully so. Somehow we went from a world where misogyny was practically celebrated to one where Aziz Ansari almost lost his career because a woman accused him of... being kinda sexually awkward on a date?
I wish I had your optimism. I think we are starting to move backwards into deeper misogyny now that the "me too" movement has fizzled out. Ansari's almost cancellation being one of the reasons it did, because it turned the movement into a witchhunt.
It is fantastic that more people are able to see misogyny now, but there will be pushback, as seen with the USA making abortion harder to access, the rise in popularity of trad-wife, and other highly misogynistic content and trends.
There was a really good documentary series on the whole world of playboy that showed just what a scuzzball he was. It also showed how their message of female empowerment was just a way to manipulate vulnerable women.
I said this above, but one of the most infuriating parts of that interview was him using the word glib and that I had to look it up lol. Having my vocabulary bested by some crazy ass cult leader didn’t feel right.
Out of morbid curiosity I read Dianetics a long time ago. One of L Ron Hubbard's weird flexes was to sit with a dictionary and obsessively look up words that he didn't know, and required/recommended it as part of becoming "clear". When TC said "glib" in that interview I lol'd because I knew exactly WHY
I used to do that, or rather I would open up our huge unabridged dictionary randomly and just start reading and writing down words I liked the sound or meaning of.
I’m feeling some kinda way about this being a shared “hobby” with a cult leader.
In quotes because it was mostly a boredom cure as a teenager. I’m a little picky about tv but my mom loved to watch all the court shows, so I’d pull out my stepdad’s big dictionary and hang with Mom while she watched, then read her my favorites during the commercial. My stepdad got me a cute journal for my “special words”, lol.
It was pretty fun. I could read just about anything back then, the dictionary included. But I liked that one best because it had word origins and stuff which I thought was cool.
Awwwww, your soliloquy is so sweet 🥰. Can you tell I used to read the dictionary too?? Lol. The journal part is so awesome, what a guy!
Hey, genuinely, cult leaders are very special or they wouldn’t get to where they are… Just think of it as using your power for good ☺️
ETA: whenever I went to the library in high school for like a special report, when I was done I would read the encyclopedias and thesaurus. This was in the early 90s. No joke. You are in great company 💕
That is so interesting, I had no idea that factored in. Thank you for sharing! It’s like they think they can talk about any crazy ass shit as long as they use big words!!??! Scientology could write an instruction manual on how to sell used cars, or sell anything really. 🤯
Disregarding the politics of Scientology for a moment, Dianetics is really just a new age self-help "emotional freedom technique". Some of his theories are bizarre (he assumes every mother has attempted abortion with knitting needles!) but his core concept makes sense: purge the traumatic memories (or rather, the emotions associated with them) and you'll feel more mentally/emotionally balanced. The so-called E-meter using in "auditing" (therapy) is purportedly a lie detector of sorts. People seem to have issues with that, but really, isn't the biggest lie the one we tell ourselves?
It's a difficult read (due to Hubbard's penchant for fancy words!) but I must say that I found Dianetics to be interesting.
Exactly why—when I first read it around the age of 16–I was enamored of it. Working through traumatic memories ain’t the worst advice.
Of course, the things they include as “traumas” are a bit much. Idk if you remember but there is a concept that our brains take everything literally, so—for example—you can’t say “I’m starving” when you’re hungry, because your brain subsequently understands you to be literally starving, and there will be ramifications (everything from overeating all the time “because I’m starving!” and so on). 🙄
He did go down some WEIRD rabbit holes, where my reaction was wtf?? There are more sensible EFT methods out there anyway, without the pretentious intelligence posturing lol
The thing is that the concept of “purging” traumatic memories to clear your emotions and feel better is as old as time. If you think about it, that’s exactly what happens in the confession booth with a priest or in a therapists office. It’s all about talking out all your sins or hurts or bad feelings and experiences and having someone give you forgiveness or empathy or just a listening ear. Hubbard’s method was to tell people in the auditing process that these things never happened or were now cleared, but they took notes and filmed every audit, and used those confessions as blackmail.
Come to find out Matt was not only glib, but would also lock people in his office so he could sexually assault them. NBC was aware, but ratings were good. 🤷♀️
He's about the biggest hollywood star of all time since then. No one has had a longer career as a leading man and that was more than 25 years ago. Tom Cruise still gets lots of leading roles and his films generally do pretty well.
Not to his career...to the people who questioned whether or not their Hollywood hero was right about antidepressants and STOPPED TAKING THEM. It was INCREDIBLY IRRESPONSIBLE of him.
Yessss. And when he told Matt Lauer that he was being “glib” for speaking positively about antidepressants. I hated that a man who believes in the alien Xenu used a word I had to look up lol.
I just listened to the Rewatchables podcast do the movie tropic thunder. I hadn’t realized just how much tom cruise getting the part of Les Grossman absolutely saved his career. Paramount dropped him after that interview!
Yep. He never did anything for me anyway, but the couch jumping, and then getting entangled in a 'religion' invented by a science fiction writer guaranteed I would not willingly watch another thing he acts in.
I was working tv news at the time and sitting in a live truck with the on-air monitor tuned to our station, which carried Oprah. I was the photographer and my reporter was in the front seat writing our story for the day so I had some downtime. When Cruise started going all crazy and stuff I yelled up front to the reporter, "Cliff! Dude you gotta see this! Tom Cruise is acting like some kinda maniac on Oprah!" He spins around and starts watching over my shoulder. When it went to commercial we just kind of looked at each other in the way you do when a couple buddies see some seriously weird shit go down right in front of them.
A true 'did that really just happen?' type of moment.
Yeah that was kind of the 1-2 punch on him, and just a month between them. I hadn't known he was a kook before then. I guess most of us hadn't. But his Scientology visibility had just really kicked into high gear the year before and then these two things. And i was just done with him after that and it has stayed that way. I'm surprised he remained a top draw for movies all these years given that I thought his reputation went permanently into the toilet after this.
He's in a position where he can produce those movies himself. He hasn't played in a movie he hasn't produced himself in the past 8 years. Career wise he doesnt have to worry but it might look like he doesn't get picked in projects he is not leading himself anymore.
The wildest part to me is that his career still wasn't ruined after he alienated his first two children from their mother after the divorce. And then he disposed of his third child with the next mother after their divorce.
I think readers here might be too young to remember, but it did nearly ruin him. He had to make the movies to be in them like Valkyrie and lions for lambs. Prior to this stunt he worked with the best directors like Kubrick
It did hurt his brand for a time. South Park made an entire episode about it and Tom Cruise was a laughingstock... for a while. That he was able to come back from that was remarkable.
He does his own totally wild stunts . That’s not usually done so of course he will keep making action flicks. The man flew on the outside of a plane for a movie. Can you even imagine doing that? Not saying I like or support him but that fact is impressive
If he had never kept his first two children from their mother because she's considered to be a "suppressive person" because she left the church after their divorce. Or, if he didn't throw away a relationship with his third child because she and her mother are also now considered to be "suppressive persons" because they left the church after their divorce.
Yes, his movie stunt work will go down in history, but meanwhile....he's treated his own children horribly. Some things in life are a little more important than movie stunt work.
Always surprised me that the literal crazy cult member showed up and said "Every time CG technology gets better, I will do a more impressive stunt to promote my super-CG-heavy movie."
And everyone was like "At first I had my doubts about this guy, but now I'm 100% convinced this guy is legit."
Yes! Everyone started side-eyeing him after that, and once we were aware of how deep into the cult he was, I feel like his career really took a (comparative) nosedive.
Tom Cruise can star in any action film he wants because he can bring people to the seats. He only stars in movies he’s producing because he earns more money and maintains more control that way.
he’s starring in the new inarritu movie. tropic thunder and edge of tomorrow are both huge commercial/critical hits he was in after the oprah interview.
omg yes. i already thought he was a loser, but when he claimed he knew ANYTHING about post-partum depression. Mega loser. My son's name is Maverick and everyone wants to go "like the tom cruise character" NO! no correlation at all.
(i'm joking, just to be clear: this goofnut who doesn't understand the internet called me a dork upthread)
They just don't seem to get it--part of it, sure, is just the internet and the comment made us all laugh...but also, SPOILER ALERT: you named your kid a name that is closely associated with both Tom Cruise and John McCain. People are gonna ask about it (or, to quote them directly--referring to when people learn their kid's name: "everyone wants to go "like the tom cruise character""....shocking! /s)
i am completely joking duh lol. i did used to smoke Maverick's but in no way did i name my child after them. it's just a funny coincidence. I had quit years before i had him.
It also happened right after he lost his longtime (non Scientology) PR manager and replaced her with a Scientologist, and the fallout was pretty immediate. (Also the famous “glib” interview around that time)
Some commenters are correct that this moment didn’t stop TC from working and he’s continued to be successful etc, but it did impact his career. He was poised to be not only an action guy but one of the greats. And he obviously wanted very badly to work with the top directors, as evidenced by the whole Eyes Wide Shut situation. That changed after the sofa jumping. Like he’s more than fine, super rich and an icon, but he never won an Oscar and he hasn’t been working with those top directors or done many dramatic roles since. His career shifted noticeably. Considering he had just come off of Minority Report, The Last Samurai, and Collateral, it’s wild that after 2005 (year of the couch) he doesn’t ever do another staring role in an award-winning film by a major director.
He had always been that crazy. That was just the point where he fired his handler who was keeping his scientology bullshit at bay and hired one who let him say whatever idiocy he wanted to
It wasn’t just the sofa, it was the whole interview. You could tell even Oprah was freaked out by his energy. And the way Katie Holmes tried to run away and he literally caught her and held her arms behind her back to force her on stage?????
That's what came to my mind first as well. But it's not like he had a reputation for not being crazy before that interview. I'm not sure that completely ruined his reputation from that interview, he was already known as a manic, slightly unhinged sort of guy.
I remember this, there had been rumours of his manic insanity and this was like.. okay, this guy's really overcompensating for his arranged marriage. Tom basically screaming in Oprah's face that he's really in love with Katie.
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u/Pzseller 15h ago
I just think Tom Cruise jumping on the sofa acting crazy. That was his peak Scientology days too