Tom Cruise's lawyer is none too happy about "Celebrity Rehab" doctor Drew Pinsky's analysis of his client, comparing it to the "garbage spewed" by Nazi Joseph Goebbels, the New York Post's Page Six gossip column reports.
In next month's Playboy, Pinsky, host of VH1's "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew," says, "A lot of people in the public eye who behave strangely have mental illness we can learn from, and much of it is based on childhood trauma, without a doubt.
"Take a guy like Tom Cruise. Why would somebody be drawn into a cultish kind of environment like Scientology? To me, that's a function of a very deep emptiness and suggests serious neglect in childhood — maybe some abuse, but mostly neglect."
Cruise's lawyer, Bert Fields, told Page Six: "This unqualified television performer who is obviously just looking for notoriety is so grotesquely unprofessional as to pretend to diagnose Tom and others without ever meeting them.
"He seems to be spewing the absurdity that all Scientologists are mentally ill. The last time we heard garbage like this was from Joseph Goebbels."
Goebbels was minister for public enlightenment and propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. He was one of German dictator Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers.
Pinsky is a board-certified internist and addiction medicine specialist.
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