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Cuba Gooding Jr. to Play Tiger Woods In a Movie – Or Giant Internet Hoax?

Dec 30, 2009, 3:07 PM UTC

â†µâ†µReports have been circulating today that Oscar-winning actor Cuba Gooding Jr. has been asked, by unnamed Hollywood producers, to play the role of Tiger Woods in a made-for-TV movie. â†µ

â†µâ†µWhat first started as a report out of Australia – clearly not Tiger’s favorite place on the planet the last few weeks – has spread to India’s movie sites and eventually to some of the bigger gossip sites in America. Even USA Today picked up the story, all emanating from Australia’s newspaper The Daily Telegraph:â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥JERRY Maguire star Cuba Gooding Jr. is being pursued by several Hollywood producers to play philandering golfer Tiger Woods in a movie.â†µâ‡¥â†µâ‡¥“It makes a great movie because people love the drama of seeing someone really successful fall from the top and then scramble to pick up the pieces of their life,” one producer told the Daily Mail newspaper.â†µâ‡¥

â†µâ†µHere’s the only problem with that story ... there’s nothing in the Daily Mail. There’s a report in Australia’s Courier Mail, but that also references the Daily Mail and sources the story “from correspondents in London.” Nothing was written about the Charleston, W.V. Daily Mail either.â†µâ†µThere’s also no link from the Daily Telegraph to the Daily Mail’s website, and a thorough search of the Daily Mail’s web archive – wow there’s a lot of gossip in Great Britain – came up with nothing regarding a movie about Woods or anything in the last three years about Gooding Jr. â†µ

â†µâ†µWhen contacted by telephone this morning, an editor at the Daily Mail said the report is, “news to me,” and editors in both the sports and news departments noted they hadn’t yet heard the rumor, let alone published it.â†µ

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â†µSo, is the rumor true? It's a rumor, so doesn't the fact that it was published make it, in some way, true? What's really interesting is to watch how these rumors transform. In the report by the Daily Telegraph, Gooding Jr. is only being "pursued" to play the role. In a report at gossip site Pop Crunch, the actor has been "tapped" and a report on the India Times website has Gooding Jr., "reportedly lined up to play the troubled celebrity golfer."â†µ

â†µâ†µWere people at the Daily Mail playing coy, or was this a quote that the Daily Telegraph associated with the Daily Mail to add to the plausibility of the fabrication? Or, perhaps, the whole darn thing is made up and the Telegraph wanted to get it out there without taking the hit if it’s proven untrue. It does seem odd, however, to credit a news source with breaking a story that they, themselves, have denied any knowledge of. â†µ

â†µâ†µMy head is spinning. If anyone out there knows anything about this, or if Mr. Gooding Jr. is reading this, shoot me an e-mail (editor’s note: blogtips[at]sportingnews[dot]com). Please, help me help you. Or something like that. â†µ

â†µâ†µOh, and Happy Birthday Tiger.â†µ

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This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.

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