TomKat, no baby pictures? Suri, you jest
By Beth Teitell
Boston Herald Columnist
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
If a celebrity baby is born, but no one sees it, does it make a sound?
The absence of public squalling by little Suri Cruise has fanned the flame of weird speculation - was Katie really pregnant?
But the possibility that Katie was carrying wadded-up towels under her T is eclipsed in bizarreness by this: There is a baby, but no published photos.
Not a one - no “casual” family portrait on the cover of People, no airport jaunt captured by the world’s paparazzi, no “whoops!” shot of the little one almost getting its first concussion thanks to a wobbly mom.
What’s wrong with the Cruises for not exploiting their newborn? How dare they keep their intimate family event, well, intimate? I don’t want to date myself, but back in the day, celebrities and politicians were criticized for allowing photo ops with their children. Now? If pictures - authorized or stolen - don’t appear within minutes of the birth, the Web starts to buzz with criticism.
What’s wrong? What are they trying to hide?
The very absence of a glossy spread in US Weekly or People, and hence a nice multimillion dollar charity donation, will be something for Suri to talk about on the couch. Can’t you just hear her 15 years from now, whining to some shrink: “When I was born, my parents didn’t even hold a bidding war for the first photos. There are no glamour shots of me rushing through an airport in daddy’s arms.”
One theory holds that the Cruises’ camera-shyness is Scientology-related. L. Ron Hubbard advised against exposing children to crowds or loud noises. So maybe that’s it, although I’m sure the paparazzi scrum would be respectful upon their first exposure to the baby (or alien, if the cybernuts are to be believed).
But here’s another idea. Yes, Tom Cruise is a Scientologist, but he’s also a businessman with a lot of people looking out for his interests (even if his behavior would lead us to believe otherwise). Maybe Team Cruise feared that the Suri shots wouldn’t fetch as much as the Shiloh Jolie-Pitt pictures, and as Hollywood agents know, setting your initial price too low is a bad career move. Maybe Cruise is simply looking out for his daughter’s long-term box-office interests.
Or maybe it’s not even as Machiavellian as that. These are movie stars, after all. Maybe she’s just not camera-ready yet. Perhaps Suri’s got baby acne, or thinks her diaper makes her look fat or is having a bad fontanel day. I sure know that feeling. My only advice is this: If she’s going to have the pictures taken, she better do it soon. Nothing would be worse than being upstaged by Britney’s second spawn.
