14 DAY TRIAL // Tom Cruise is so famous that even his videotaped testimony in an ongoing wiretapping lawsuit gets its very own bodyguard and extra security measures, Radar Online has learned.
The deposition was part of a lawsuit in which the actor is accused of hiring a private detective to tap magazine editor Michael Davis Sapir’s phone, after he threatened to go public with proof that the star was secretly gay.
As Radar notes, the whole thing goes back many years, when Sapir first said he would provide irrefutable proof that Cruise was gay, which he never did because he recanted that statement later.
In 2009 though, Sapir took Cruise to court, asking for $5 million (€3.7 million) in damages on the claim that Cruise hired private investigator Anthony Pellicano to wiretap him.
The actor was in court 10 days ago for his deposition, with Radar Online just now getting hold of court documents showing the lengths he went to to make sure not a peep of what he said ever got out.
Tom Cruise is notoriously secretive about his personal life but, even for him, that’s a bit extreme, voices online are saying.
“Cruise sat for a three hour videotaped deposition on December 18, 2012, but he insisted that the taped interview be conducted and held under tight security so that the contents of his testimony are never released to the public,” Radar has learned.
Among the demands made by the actor and his attorney: that the tape get its own “bodyguard,” and that all measures be taken to ensure it never gets out.
“Only one original videotape of the deposition shall be made. No copies of the videotape, or any video or audio portions thereof, may be made and no one other than the counsel for the Parties and the Custodian, as defined below, may have access to the videotape,” court documents say.
“In the documents Cruise insists that a custodian be the only person who has the original video tape and they ‘shall safeguard and permit no one to view, audit or copy the videotape,’ without instructions from the court,” Radar further writes.
Another stipulation says that the videotape deposition is to be returned “directly” to Cruise’s attorney once the case is closed.