Dwayne Johnson – The Rock – claims that the Daily Star entirely invented his comments about snowflakes. This is believable as Gordon Brown found out one day when Prime Minister. The Sun reported one of his comments with something of a less than subtle change. Tabloid newspapers – more than the non-tabloids – aren’t to be entirely trusted with their commentary nor stories that is. A shock to grandmothers everywhere:
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]The Rock says Daily Star fabricated ‘snowflake’ criticism[/perfectpullquote]Whether it’s true or not is one thing, the point is that it’s believable:
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has claimed the Daily Star fabricated a front-page story in which the film star appeared to criticise millennials as “snowflakes”. The story, which appeared on Friday’s front page under the headline “The Rock Smacks Down Snowflakes” and was billed as an exclusive, was picked up by news outlets around the world. [/perfectpullquote]The response being:
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] However, Johnson, a former wrestler who has become one of the world’s biggest film stars, used an Instagram video to insist the quotes were fake. “The interview never took place, never happened, never said any of those words, completely untrue, 100% fabricated, I was quite baffled when I woke up this morning,” he said. [/perfectpullquote]Well, OK.
The story I recall on this quotation lark was one from Gordon Brown when he was in Number 10. The Sun quoted him as saying he got out of bed to the Arctic Monkeys in the morning. Cue lots of laughter at a hopelessly out of touch politician desperately attempting to look hip. What he’d actually said was, when played a bit, “I can see that would get you out of bed in the morning”.
But then we have been told not to believe everything in the newspapers, haven’t we?
What I don’t understand is why make up a story about an ‘A’ list celeb (like The Rock) with money who can sue your arse off when there are so many wannabe ‘Z’ list celebs who’d bite your arm off for the exposure?
“A List” is a euphemism for “Sells newspapers”?
Indeed.
No doubt some sum will be paid to The Rock and an apology printed on a page after the celeb news (and before the football results) where no one sees it.
A bean counter calculates the increased circulation profits and proposes a payout that still results in more profit for The Sun.
Doesn’t really work for the ‘Z’ list celeb as (by definition) there won’t be any increase in circulation as a result.