Tom Cruise Apologizes to Matt Lauer for Glib Comment

NBC and the Today Show staff embraced Tom Cruise during his return to the show this morning and he comfortably bantered with Matt Lauer and the rest of the cast as he talked about his new film and the interview-gone-awry from a few years ago. In the now infamous interview with Tom Cruise, the Top Gun star accused Matt Lauer of being glib when the two were discussing Tom's opposition to psychiatry and pharmaceuticals - one of the more controversial tenets of scientology, Cruise's belief system. For those of us that don't know what "glib" means, it is used to describe someone who speaks comfortably about things that they know nothing about and about which they have no facts or understanding. Basically, Cruise was saying that Matt Lauer was full of hot air (or any other substance you prefer to insert into the metaphor).

The irony, of course, is that Cruise has no background in medicine or psychiatry, yet felt qualified to declare the entire field of psychiatry bogus and question the need for people suffering from mental illness to medicate themselves. He specifically addressed Brooke Shields' battle with postpartum depression, saying that the illness was contrived and that there is no need to medicate for such a condition. Basically, the mind can be healed without medication.

His comments, understandably, drew tremendous criticism from the medical industry, the pharmaceutical industry, mothers, parents and just about anyone who doesn't take their medical advice from actors. The PR fall-out painted Cruise as slightly deranged and several "behind-the-scenes" interviews with the likes of Oprah and others were carefully planned to re-introduce Cruise to the mainstream. Now he's back and his new film, Valkyrie, is slated to open in theaters on Christmas day.