Tom Cruise Named Most Powerful Celebrity Of 2001
In an embarrassing mix-up that will almost certainly result in the firing of several editors, Forbes magazine today mistakenly republished the results of its 2001 Celebrity 100 list as its new, 2006 version of the world's most influential famous people, a five-year-old data set which proclaimed then-universally-beloved megastar Tom Cruise the most powerful celebrity in the world. That 2001 report boasted that Cruise had "never been hotter" following the $215 million Mission: Impossible II raked in at the domestic box office, lauded his attempt to "tackle something with more weight" by signing up for Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky, a complex psychodrama that will "test the limits of the legendarily intense actor's chops in a new and exciting way," and credited his quiet, private devotion to the "somewhat controversial" religion of Scientology with getting him through the difficult dissolution of his marriage to "soulmate" Nicole Kidman "without missing a beat," all tragic reminders of the recent erosion of Cruise's once-immense popularity.
Reps for Forbes described the snafu as a "regrettable mistake" and have pledged to launch a full investigation into the events leading up to the profoundly distressing error.
