According to the Daily Mail - who rounded up some interesting quotes on the matter - it appears to be a very real possibility. To say Travolta's had a rough go of it recently would be putting it very, very lightly.

On the business side of things, Travolta's big role this year performed under studio expectations. A complete aside, when you consider his personal life:

His son Jett - reportedly autistic, a diagnosis the Church of Scientology refuses to dignify - passed away earlier this year. Travolta defied Scientology and acknowledged it. Some sleazy gossip website put together a theory that enlists the idea of Travolta not only having a gay lover, but the gay lover - his son's nanny - being a primary cause of his son's death. Which is besides the fact that someone tried to extort him over documents involved in his son's transportation, and his wife might've tried (successfully) to get Roger Friedman fired by going to the top brass at Fox over Friedman's comments on Scientology.

All of this gives the Daily Mail's report some ground to walk on, when they note:

His distress, say sources close to him, has been compounded by the first cracks in his 34-year relationship with the Church of Scientology, the cult-like religion of which Travolta is a prominent and generous benefactor. And there are dark mutterings that if he carries out private threats to leave, the organisation will go public with embarrassing details of his private life, including, it is claimed, allegations of past homosexual relationships. Sources in the U.S. disclosed to me this week that his son's sudden death has 'deeply shaken' Travolta's faith in the strange sect, which makes wild claims about its ability to cure a variety of physical and mental disorders.

There's more talk of Travolta taking late night drives by himself, and being in a "state of constant distress." There's the very evident weight Travolta's gained. There's the memory of Scientology's scary-ass leader David Miscavage slagging on Travolta's sexuality:

Earlier, the prestigious Time magazine also reported allegations made by Richard Aznaran, the former security head of Scientology, that the Church's leader, David Miscavige, had repeatedly joked about Travolta's 'promiscuous homosexual behaviour'.

And then there's the fact that Scientology has a well known history of intimidation of the physical and emotional stripe. This goes without saying, but: Travolta's donated millions of dollars, and what could only be thousands of hours to the church throughout his life. Shit, he made Battlefield Earth.

For a celebrity of Travolta's stature to renounce Scientology would be massive, for both parties. Even rumors of Travolta's potential departure from the religion are pretty damning. Granted, it'll be a difficult path if he chooses to take it - the resistance he'll encounter from the highest levels of the religion are potentially fiscally, emotionally, and physically dangerous to his livelihood - but one that could shake Scientology to its absolute core.

Is John Travolta cracking up? [Daily Mail]

That's damages for "wrongful termination, tortious interference and libel defamation." All, of course, stemming from the fact that Friedman wrote critical things of those wacky-yet-lovable Scientologists and Fox is in league with their most powerful members, so the whole "Hey you reviewed a film made by the studio you work for that you downloaded illegally so maybe you shouldn't have this job anymore" thing was just a red herring! A McGuffin meant to distract us from the wicked thetan-clearing hordes that control Hollywood.

Our question: If Friedman is claiming that money as any sort of lost earnings, how the hell much money was he making in the first place?

Update: The HuffPo, which first reported news of the suit, said Friedman "is expected" to bring up the Scientology allegations he made to the New York Daily News in his lawsuit. A source on Friedman's side of the litigation is mad at us because they say the suit filed today in New York Supreme Court doesn't mention Scientology. We asked his lawyer, Martin Garbus, to send over a copy of the complaint and will post an update when we get it.

Update 2: Garbus' office sent the complaint over and we discuss it here. (Yes, it does include the word "Scientology," but only once.)

Talk about an incredible item. Brief recap: Fox canned Friedman after he wrote about how easy it was to obtain a leaked, unfinished copy of Wolverine that had made its way onto the internet. Friedman went through a Kangaroo Court of sorts and got the opportunity to reason for his job with EVP John Moody and Fox News chief Roger Ailes at Fox News. It didn't go well, and he lost. The statement that was released:

Fox News representatives and Roger Friedman met today and mutually agreed to part ways immediately. Fox News appreciates Mr. Friedman's ten years of contributions to building foxnews.com and wishes him success in his future endeavors. Mr. Friedman is grateful to his colleagues for their friendship and support over the past decade.

Not so much. Friedman took his story to Rush & Molloy in the Daily News' (immortal competitor to the Fox-owned New York Post, in case you forgot). Naturally.

In it, Friedman accuses Scientology of plotting against him for a long time, as he's been a vocal critic of the organization for a while. Friedman thinks the entire Wolverine saga - a case Fox definitely took to the FBI in order to trace the original source of the film's leak - was a bullshit cover-up for his termination, or at least, the pin they needed to pull on his employment that they'd been waiting on a for a while. He cites a few instances and interactions with key celebrity Scientology members, but mainly, John Travolta's wife, Kelly Preston.

He says he saw Preston at fellow Scientology member Issac Hayes' funeral in Memphis about eight months before he was fired. They ran into each other in a hotel lobby, and as Friedman tells it, Preston had some words for him:

Mrs. John Travolta loudly blasted him for his columns criticizing Scientology. "She called me a ‘religious bigot,'  " Friedman recalls.

Sometime thereafter, as the story goes, Preston then tried to get him fired by getting Friedman's aforementioned Kangaroo Court, John Moody and Roger Ailes, on the phone. Preston called Moody a dirty word when Moody wouldn't fire Friedman for slagging on Scientology. Moody and Ailes supposedly met with Preston and Scientology's spokesman Tommy Davis to put them on ice. Friedman's overlords then told Friedman to ease up on writing about the controversial death of Jett Travolta, Preston's son. [It was recently revealed that John Travlota went against the Church of Scientology's teachings in noting Jett as having autism, a condition regarding by Scientologists as a psychological disorder, and thus, a relatively stigmatized term to them.]

Sometime after, Jim Gianopoulos, 20th Century Fox's chief, told Friedman to lay off of Tom Cruise's Hitler-hunting epic Valkyrie in the leadup to its release. Which, if it's true, sounds like some typical studio-news overlap, and probably has less to do with Scientology and more to do with Gianopoulos trying to curb the momentum of bad press his movie was getting at the time.

But then:

Last month, Variety reported that Cruise was in advanced talks to star with Cameron Diaz in a Fox action comedy, "Wichita." A source suspects that Cruise may have made Friedman's ouster a condition of the actor appearing in "Wichita. "

And, conspiracy! Someone, somewhere, suspects that some shit might've gone down! Maybe? Either way, Friedman notes that the moment his job was on the line, nobody came to his defense. "Nobody from Fox News defended me. They let the studio dictate to the newsroom," he told the News. The quote they got from Friedman's lawyer is far less conspiratorial: he's arguing the whole "piracy" aspect of things, and he's probably going to try and spend less time trying to convince a court that Friedman's being plotted against than he is working on the whole "wrongful termination" thing, though he does toss one gem to R&M: "I've seen how Scientology intimidates even the most powerful media. That seems to be what happened here."

So it goes. The final note in the column that matters is that Fox Overlord Rupert Murdoch isn't a fan of Scientology and reportedly "bristled" when they tried to recruit his kid.

Preston and Cruise's lawyers both issued outright denials. Fox refused to comment. And we might have a ball game. Let's say this thing goes whole hog: that's Preston and Cruise, being called to the stand, being asked to testify under oath as to whether or not they wanted Friedman fired and had remarked the same to anybody, at any point, ever.

But really, this just sounds like a case of Friedman being more trouble than he's worth. Fox makes exponentially more cash via Scientologists than they do their gadfly columnist talking shit on some of their highly-connected high-earners. Why keep Friedman, who's pissing off their Big Names, around? There's no reason to. So, yeah, the Wolverine thing was probably the straw that broke the gossip's job in half. To win and/or settle this thing in Friedman's favor, his lawyer's gonna have to drag whoever he can through the mud, which is probably going to be far more difficult than he thinks it's going to be.

Meanwhile, Friedman's doing a watered-down variation of his shtick at the Hollywood Reporter, incredibly. The Reporter, which has always played second fiddle to Variety for industry trade news, needs the favor of studios and agencies in order to get scoops. Why, then, would any trade paper brass in their right mind associate themselves with Friedman's gossipy items? In order to get the money Friedman's used to being paid by Fox, he has to associate himself with a big name (like The Reporter). Eventually, they're probably going to learn that Friedman's items are costing them news, and they'll cut him off from writing the "good" stuff. And Friedman's going to need something to do when that happens. Like sit on some of that lawsuit money.

Onward! To the courts!

Fox's axed man blames Scientologists [Rush & Molloy]

A Syracuse professor says his school was scared out of offering him tenure after he criticized Bill O'Reilly, which got Syracuse's chancellor subjected to a patented O'Reilly ambush interview. Syracuse is one of the nation's top "communications" schools, btw.


The career choices of Harvard Crimson editors are now representative of the entire journalism industry. Reportedly! They're not going into journalism as much as before, you see. The 99% of college newspaper editors who don't go to Harvard: Nobody knows what they're doing.


White House pool photography, well explained.

"At least 14 U.S. news ombudsmen have lost their jobs since the beginning of 2008." We call that BAD NEWS. A bad pun is not good enough for you, commentary-wise? Well look at this way: Most newspaper publisher secretly hate ombudsmen because they have to pay them to criticize their own paper. So this is the best newspaper industry news in years!


Roger Friedman, the gossip guy fired by Fox for watching a bootleg DVD, has been hired by The Hollywood Reporter! There are second chances in journalism, as long as you're an established hack fired for stupid reasons.

WOODY ‘WORKS' MAGIC WITH NEW COMEDY

It doesn't seem possible, but with "Whatever Works"-which opened the Tribeca Film Festival last night-Woody Allen makes it two in a row.

There's more, too! Congratulations on not letting Rupert Murdoch crush your spirit, Roger. We hope you and your friend Matt Drudge can concoct a good plan for revenge.
[Showbiz 411. (Slang for "INFO"). Pic: Flickr]

As Fox called in the FBI to find out who had leaked the film onto the Internet, Friedman posted a column last Thursday marveling at how easy it was to find a copy of the purloined Hugh Jackman comic book film online. The column was quickly removed and over the weekend, reports emerged that he had been fired. News Corp.'s corporate P.R. even released a statement on Sunday saying that the columnist was toast.

But that was a bit premature, and Ailes gave Friedman the chance to come in and tell him and Fox News executive vice president John Moody why he shouldn't be fired. That meeting was supposed to take place this morning, but got pushed back to the afternoon.

Why go through all the bother? Our guess is that, as ridiculous as it might sound, corporate politics were to blame. Power at News Corp. is in flux now that Ruper Murdoch's deputy Peter Chernin has announced his exit. And some of the big winners in the corporate restructurings so far have been the heads of the Fox movie studio, Tom Rothman and Jim Gianopoulos. No matter how inevitable Friedman's exit may have been, it wouldn't be surprising if Ailes bristled at the idea of movie studio people making hiring-and-firing decisions in his cable news outfit.

So, Friedman got his day in kangaroo court. And lost. Here's the official statement from Fox News:

Fox News representatives and Roger Friedman met today and mutually agreed to part ways immediately. Fox News appreciates Mr. Friedman's ten years of contributions to building foxnews.com and wishes him success in his future endeavors. Mr. Friedman is grateful to his colleagues for their friendship and support over the past decade.

Update: Friedman asks that we clarify one thing: He did not not download Wolverine per se. He explains:

I did not download anything. I found Wolverine on the internet by accident on Wednesday night. I was looking for something else—info on another movie, which had a link to this site. I simply pressed "play" and when I realized it really was Wolverine, I skipped watching Lost and watched this instead. Afterwards I discovered that the Times had written about it earlier that evening. I guess what I did was called streaming. But there was no downloading. I am fervently anti-piracy, have written extensively about this, and spent too much money at amazon's mp3 site. Please let's clear up this misconception.

Okay then.

Friedman is set to meet tomorrow with Fox News chief Roger Ailes and John Moody, the news network's executive vice president for editorial, the source said. Friedman will have a chance to plead his case, but the meeting could well end with the columnist losing his job.

Friedman is in hot water for posting to FoxNews.com Thursday a review of the forthcoming movie Wolverine. The freelance columnist based his comments on an unfinished version of the movie that leaked onto the internet last week. "It's so much easier than going out in the rain!" he wrote. "I was completely riveted to my desk chair in front of my computer."

You can imagine how this went over at Wolverine producer 20th Century Fox, which last week called in the FBI to find out who leaked the film. The studio complained corporate sibling Fox News, according to Nikki Finke, and parent company News Corp. publicly condemned the review and requested its removal. Fox News promptly deleted the piece.

Finke wrote that Ailes then fired Friedman, a development seemingly confirmed by a statement News Corp. supplied to the New York Times, reading, "Fox News… terminated Mr. Friedman."

But Fox News' only statement on the affair (also given to the Times) is that "This is an internal matter that we aren't prepared to discuss at this time."

And in fact Friedman has not been fired, according to the Fox News source, although he could well be terminated during tomorrow's meeting. The delay in firing Friedman (despite News Corp.'s announcement) could be read as a play by Ailes to assert the news division's independence from film studio 20th within the News Corp. empire.

The meeting also gives Fox News time to reconcile its own definition of journalistic ethics with 20th Century Fox's. The film studio says Friedman shouldn't have broken the law in the service of a story. But Fox News seems more comfortable with such mischief. Network anchor Shep Smith wasn't fired after he was arrested for running over a competing reporter with his car so he could snag parking space, even though the incident resulted in felony battery charges (later apparently dropped without explanation).

When Bill O'Reilly's former producer accused the Fox News host of sexual harassment, producing lengthy conversation transcripts O'Reilly never denied, sibling publication the New York Post slammed her in a story headlined "'Lunatic' O'Reilly Gal Went Nuts in Bar." O'Reilly settled the suit and, of course, retains his job.

And Fox is unrepentant about stalking a liberal blogger, sending a camera crew to tail her from her apartment across state lines to Virginia.

Friedman has had it out for Valkyrie for months, culminating in his omission from press-screening invitations issued around the beginning of December. Studio reps said at the time that Friedman had already made up his mind and MGM/UA didn't owe him anything ("Screenings are a privilege, not a right," marketing boss Mike Vollman told Patrick Goldstein); ever the professional, Friedman included Valkyrie among his Worst Films of 2008 despite not having seen it, forced to expense the ticket to Fox and join the unwashed masses on opening day.

Surprise! He hates it. Not that you should care, except for the part where he lies, perhaps libelously so. For your convenient reference, we've responded to some of Friedman's more outrageous claims with a bit of context and/or reality checks:

"I’m more concerned that Valkyrie could represent a new trend in filmmaking: Nazi apologia."

Yes, Valkyrie is a pretty gutsy move toward defending the honor of Nazis — particularly the central plot to deceive and kill Adolf Hitler and eradicate his leadership from Germany's governance. Way to call it, Rog.

"Cruise plays Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg — referred to in this film constantly as “Stauffenberg”— as if to make him sound less German or something."

Exactly. Reference to Cruise's character as "Stauffenberg" decidedly downplays his German heritage. Everyone involved should be ashamed for forcing this linguistic quirk down audience's throats.

On top of that, there is the matter of the uniforms and the set design. Suddenly, we have German officers in World War II who are not wearing arm bands. Their swastikas are now small tokens on chests of medals. They look more like airline pilots than Nazi soldiers. When they meet, it looks like they’re at a lovely retreat in the Adirondacks.

Indeed, the lack of Nazi insignia affirms the historical accuracy that Colonel von Stauffenberg was not a member of the Nazi party. Not all German soldiers were Nazis, nor all Nazis soldiers. As far as their meeting locations, Hitler did have a redoubt or 12 in the woods, of which vast portions of Germany are composed. Clearly from Hitler's depiction in Valkyrie, the setting did not assuage his paranoia, treachery, incompetence or sense of imminent doom.

Director Bryan Singer is so sparing with his Nazi flags, swastikas, etc that you’d think the Nazis hardly existed. What’s everyone so upset about anyway?

Unfamiliar with the act of purchasing a movie ticket, Friedman apparently arrived late to his Valkyrie screening, missing the title sequence's slow unveiling over the billowing red, white and black fabric of a Nazi flag. He may also have left early, skipping the [SPOILER ALERT] Nazi siege of Stauffenberg's coup HQ and their subsequent assassination of the resistance.

Because in Valkyrie Singer opens the door to a dangerous new thought: that the Holocaust and all the other atrocities could be of secondary important [sic] to the cause of German patriotism. Not once in Valkyrie do any of there [sic] “heroes” mention what’s happening around them, that any of them is appalled by or against what they know is happening or has happened: Hitler has systemically killed millions in the most barbaric ways possible to imagine.

We're certainly not here to downplay the Holocaust, but as it pertains to Valkyrie's plot — which is explicitly about terminating history's worst monster — Hitler and all that he stands for are the collective Scourge of German Honor. Would Friedman have preferred no conspiracy to kill Hitler, and thus a couple dozen fewer German politicians and officers wishing to end World War II and, thus, the Holocaust? And yes, not coincidentally, defend Germany from further disgrace. We know you're a fan of revisionist history, Rog, but seriously: From here, please leave the movies to the experts.

• Is Horrible 'Valkyrie' Tom Cruise's Nazi Apologia? [Fox News]

Smith is buddy buddy with Tom Cruise, who judging from press accounts can be a persistent, very public, probably annoying "friend." Smith put Cruise's son in his movie earlier this year, he "surprised" him at Smith's Hollywood Walk of Fame "star" installation, and went to the premiere of Smith's "I Am Legend."

Last year, Friedman reported a $20,000 donation by Smith to Scientology's home-schooling system, Hollywood Education and Literacy Program.

The numbers reported this year are much larger: $122,500 from Smith to the Church of Scientology, across these donations:

• $68,000 for New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Fund, for 9/11 responders. Wonder what sort of "toxins" this targets — and whether it's science or Scientology that cures them.
• $50,000 for the Celebrity Center in Hollywood. That one doesn't even have a cover story, it's just a straight Scientology HQ.
• $5,000 to something called "ABLE."

At this spending rate, Smith might as well me a member.

Either Smith is a secret Scientologist, or he doesn't know how to say "no" to his clingy, still-insane buddy Tom Cruise. And the latter is hardly better than the former, because it means the former will someday come true. Unless the awesome Jason Beghe can somehow do some cock blocking. So to speak!

One of them was that he’d been caught having an affair with his tennis instructor (a woman) and that he was undergoing rehab to save his marriage.

Alas, it isn’t so, says a close friend [editor's note: "alas"?]. Duchovny did not check in because of an extramarital fling. That much the friend is certain of. Even more so: Duchovny’s problem has been longstanding. His wife, Tea Leoni, was aware of it for some time. It had just reached a point where it had to be treated.

I have inferred from my conversation with Duchovny’s friend that this has something to do with an addiction to pornography, probably on the Internet. It’s the sex equivalent of a gambling addiction, where the person is just hopelessly trapped in chat rooms.

...When Duchovny is done with the rehab, I’m also told that he and Tea and their kids will complete their move to Manhattan’s Upper East Side from Hollywood. They will be very welcome here, as Tea is much in demand work-wise. Duchovny will have more "Californication" and plenty of offers. New York doesn’t solve all your problems, but it’s a much more realistic place to live than Los Angeles.

The truth is here, not out there.

If you say so, Rodge! Sounds to us like Duchovny's problem could be better served by a DSL downgrade than by a sudden uptick in falafel and population density, but then again, that might just be our non-"realistic," Left Coast point-of-view talking. Duchovny might find it hard to shake his online persona ("HouseOfDP") no matter which city he chooses to land in, but call us optimists: we want to believe.

• David Duchovny Sex Scandal: No Affair [Fox News]

The real story? Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe will be right in the middle of his sensational, highly publicized run on Broadway in the play, "Equus." Radcliffe appears naked in the play, on stage, and has sex in it as well. That's not the image Warner Bros. wants associated with bespectacled Harry, who remains chaste and virginal.

Indeed, posters for Equus are up all over New York, of Radcliffe's naked torso superimposed on a horse's head. This is not the sort of thing that's taught at Hogwarts. For the movie to open on Nov. 21, Radcliffe would have to do publicity entailing answering questions about blinding horses and having sex with them vs. flying around and making potions.

There's just one thing, Rog: this whole Equus brouhaha? Warner Bros. has already been through it. When Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix came out last summer, it was right on the heels of Radcliffe's first (underage!) Equus run in London, where the production began. By now, the nudity is old hat — in fact, reports are circulating that Radcliffe's Broadway run isn't causing as big a fuss as promoters had hoped. Forgive us, but for once we're going to believe the official line from the studio heads; after all, we can think of another dark installment in a long-running franchise that did gangbusters business in its mid-July release date this year...

• Harry Potter Scared by Horse [Fox News]

And seeing as such allegations clearly wouldn't be insidious enough to defend his late pal's honor, Friedman stops a gold chain link short of blaming the Church outright for Hayes's death:

There are a lot of questions still to be raised about Isaac Hayes’ death. Why, for example, was a stroke survivor on a treadmill by himself? What was his condition? What kind of treatment had he had since the stroke? Members of Scientology are required to sign a form promising they will never seek psychiatric or mental assistance. But stroke rehabilitation involves the help of neurologists and often psychiatrists, not to mention psychotropic drugs — exactly the kind Scientology proselytizes against.

Ugh! Such ugliness — on the night of Celebrity Center's 39th anniversary gala and everything! And just when the Tomfather was getting ready to go legit, too. These guys can't win for losing.

• Isaac Hayes' History With Scientology [Fox 411]

Yikes! This is quite a difference from the "Abbie Cornish (whom Phillippe is rumored to have romanced)" revision hastily implemented just after HuffPo's item broke. This is what always happens any time Friedman breaks from his beloved, played-out Michael Jackson beat, but hats off to him and the gang at Fox for keeping the class alive by pretending his lies, rumors and innuendo never existed. Though we can't say the same for either star's lawyers, we'll pretend — for the hundredth or so time — that we didn't see that.

[Photo Credit: FilmMagic]

• First Reese Witherspoon, Now It's Ryan Phillippe's Turn in 'Stop-Loss' [Fox News]

*Sent less than an hour after being name-dropped by said lifeless freaks.