One of this week’s most oft picked up pr lines from a magazine article came from Health. Health, owned by Time Inc, featured Kelly Preston, aka Mrs. John Travolta, on its current cover. Celeb (low level, i.e. Michael Lohan) writer Alison Prato did the Q&A, which featured Preston extolling the virtues of dangerous sect Scientology. It’s a Q&A and not an actual reported feature, which means that there’s no work done around any of the assertions.
Preston tells Prato that the thing that helped her get ove the death of son, Jett, was Scientology. The quote got picked up everywhere, and Tweeted and retweeted over and over. Prato was so proud that she tweeted out all her pick-ups, too. How nice. No mention is made of the dangers of Scientology or its controversy. And Prato doesn’t ask Preston whether Scientology rules actually might have caused Jett’s death.
Prato does say that Jett suffered from Autism, an assertion Preston and Travolta denied up to and after his death. It was only when the Bahamas police released Travolta’s initial statement to them did the movie star’s admission of Jett’s Autism finally surface. Indeed for years the Travoltas insisted Jett suffered from Kawasaki Syndrome. He didn’t. Prato doesn’t ask Preston about any of that.
I don’t know what helped Preston get over Jett’s death. Everyone deals with grief differently, and Jett’s loss is not to be minimized. But I do know that three months later she was back at work shooting “Casino Jack” with Kevin Spacey.
PS If only Prato could have asked Preston to explain how Jett died, and why a Florida wedding photographer with a history of taking Scientology courses for drug abuse, was his “manny.” http://gawker.com/5122788/travoltas-rumored-gay-lover-discovered-dead-son
Also: I’m told that Breitling watches, for whom Travolta gets paid millions to promote, recently flew the actor to Europe. In interviews, sources say, all “Johnny” (as Preston calls him) wanted to talk about was Scientology. On the record. Those publications, unlike Health, excised those comments.
