Over the past few days, the lurid reports on Jesse James’s extracurricular sex life have inevitably spread to incriminate Sandra Bullock herself: The “says a friend†accounts reached a particularly icky peak with a report by “award-winning journalist†Ian Halperin that describes a sex tape between her and James involving “anal sex … and a Hitler mustache.†If you were wondering what it would take to get Bullock to break her silence, that was the crossed line. Today she released a statement: “There is no sex tape,†she said. “There never has been one and there never will be one.†(The last part added in case James was feeling optimistic about the future.)
With new one-upping tales of tapes and/or Nazi paraphernalia emerging every day, it’s not surprising that Bullock’s silencing hand was finally forced. Who knows what’s true in all of this, but it seems like it was turning into a game in which each “source†took the latest rumor and added another filthy detail, trying to see who could make her career collapse; it’s like defamation Jenga. It’s somewhat disturbing to think about where else these rumors would go if left unchecked: That Sandra Bullock is actually a Nazi? Actually, that’s already been floated. That, like Bombshell McGee, Bullock also has tattoos on her face, but covers them up with makeup? That probably was tomorrow’s news break. That in Germany, Practical Magic is used as a recruitment film for a new class of Brownshirts? Don’t rule anything out in this gossip cycle.