Tom Cruise sure is protective of his late father. He’s lashing out at TV psychiatrist Drew Pinksy, AKA Dr. Drew, who has this to say in next month’s Playboy (courtesy of Page Six):

“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.”

To which Cruise’s attack dog attorney Bert Fields replied:

“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.”

Yeah, Dr. Drew is a Nazi! Or maybe he just reads Parade Magazine. Back in 2006, Cruise told them the following about his dad:

“[He] was a bully and a coward… the kind of person where, if something goes wrong, they kick you. It was a great lesson in my life — how he’d lull you in, make you feel safe and then, bang!

“For me, it was like, ‘There’s something wrong with this guy. Don’t trust him. Be careful around him.’ There’s that anxiety.”

Sounds to me like Cruise was saying he suffered a very deep emptiness and serious neglect during childhood. Maybe even some abuse. Achtung, Bertie!

Of course, a cynic would say that Cruise isn’t worried about people defaming his dad, but he’s just lashing out, as usual, at anybody who questions Scientology. But that couldn’t be it. How dumb would it be to alienate the public again, just when people are starting to forget how creepy and cynically underhanded the cult is? Tom Cruise is smarter than to give his detractors even more ammunition. Right?