As Cruise & Lauer Sparred, Paramount Pressured NBC To Edit The Interview

As Tom Cruise got all shook up with Matt Lauer on Thursday, the movie star’s publicists kicked into high gear, TVNewser hears. They lit into senior entertainment producer Tim Bruno, demanding that ‘Today’ only air portions of the interview that related to War of the Worlds. Then the handlers threatened to pull all future star bookings from the top-rated morning show. NBC eventually came to an agreement with the reps, but I wonder what Cruise said in the 20 minutes of the interview that didn’t air…

> “The ensuing buzz seemed likely to give another lift to the top-rated morning show, which weathered a strong challenge from ABC’s Good Morning America this spring,” the L.A. Times’ Matea Gold says.

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