Tom Hardy: In, Out, In, Out, Shake It All About

Fagburn has to confess he didn't bother writing about Tom Hardy being quoted as saying he'd had gay sex with when he was younger.
Basically because I don't think a celebrity saying they've done some same-sexing is newsworthy anymore.
How wrong I was.
The "story" 'Inception hunk Tom Hardy admits: 'I've had sexual relations with men' was published in the Daily Mail on July 28th and "credited" to "Daily Mail Reporter".
"But asked if he'd ever had any sexual relations with other men, the broody actor said: 'As a boy? Of course I have. I'm an actor for ****'s sake.
'I've played with everything and everyone. I love the form and the physicality, but now that I'm in my thirties, it doesn't do it for me.
'I'm done experimenting but there's plenty of stuff in a relationship with another man, especially gay men, that I need in my life.
'A lot of gay men get my thing for shoes. I have definite feminine qualities and a lot of gay men are incredibly masculine.'
In an interview with Now magazine, the former party-boy who has battled drink, drugs and crime to turn his life around, added: 'A lot of people say I seem masculine, but I don't feel it.
'I feel intrinsically feminine. I'd love to be one of the boys but I always felt a bit on the outside.
'Maybe my masculine qualities come from overcompensating because I'm not one of the boys.'

But then last Friday it did become a story - because a denial was made.
"A source close to the rising star" told E! Online's Tom Casablanca; "It's all taken out of context. He was discussing a gay role and quotes coming from the character."
Eh?
This led Queerty - among others - to speculate;
"So either Hardy — who is engaged and planning a wedding with stunning fiance Charlotte Riley — has a tendency to quote scripts he used to work on to British reporters, or he absolutely had a hardy old time with other gents in his younger years. And now his handlers are working to erase it."
Which sounded plausible.
Today Tom Casablanca writes on E! Online
"We did a little digging around and found that the alleged interview was more than taken out of context —it was taken from an interview Hardy did two years ago:
"The Daily Mail was rehashing a 2008 article in Now magazine, which claimed to have interviewed Hardy where dropped the bisexual bomb. But Now totally ripped off Attitude magazine's 2008 cover story with Tom back when he was promoting RocknRolla. You following?
"Hardy was on the December '08 cover of Attitude, the UK's best-selling gay magazine, where he talked about playing Handsome Bob, a gay mobster in Guy Richie's flick."
Oh yes! Amazing what you find with two minutes of Googling, isn't it?
The Attitude interview is available to read on their website (you have to register, but it's free).
These are yer actual questions and answers as they appeared in Attitude;

Have you ever had any sexual relations with men?
As a boy? Of course I have. I’m an actor for fuck’s sake. I’m an artist. I’ve played with everything and everyone. But I’m not into men sexually. I love the form and the physicality but the gay sex bit does nothing for me. In the same way as a wet vagina would turn someone else into a lemon-sucking freak. To me it just doesn’t compute now I’m into my 30s and it doesn’t do it for me and I’m done experimenting.
Have you done it all?
Not all but I can imagine. We’ve all got an arsehole and I can imagine. It just doesn’t do it for me, sex with another man. But there’s plenty of stuff in a relationship with another man, especially gay men, that I need in my life. A lot of gay men get my thing for shoes. I don’t think I’m metrosexual but I’m definitely my mother’s son. I have definite feminine qualities and a lot of gay men are incredibly masculine.

So that's cleared all that up; he fooled around when he was a boy, but didn't go all the way.
Phew!
In the version of the original Daily Mail story that is online now, it makes it clear the quotes are taken from Now, but not that the quotes are two years old.
What E! Online have missed is that at the time Now magazine and Attitude were sister publications, both owned by Richard Desmond's Northern & Shell.
Interviews given to one of the titles would regularly appear in the other in whole or in part.
The Attitude interview was written by Simon Gage, who does big name "showbiz" interviews for Richard Desmond's Daily Express as well.
Gage used to edit Boyz, was deputy showbusiness editor at The Daily Express, and is a contributing editor to Attitude.
He also ran for many years Warwick Worldwide, who would place and syndicate showbusiness copy or "content".
The Now feature was credited to Clare Alexander.
So it may not be that Now "totally ripped off Attitude magazine's cover story" - the interview may have been sold on the basis that it would appear in one or more other Northern & Shell titles.
How did these old quotes end up in The Daily Mail last month?
It was a kind of "outing" - his past came back to haunt him because he's moved into the big league.
Hardy's first big role in a big Hollywood movie, Inception, is in cinemas now, and he's just announced he's playing Mad Max in the megabucks remake.
And there ain't many big Hollywood actors who admit to doing it with dudes - and Tom's arguably the first who's pretty do-able himself.
But did someone get 30 pieces of silver for tipping off the "Daily Mail Reporter" about Tom's old admission of his past indiscretions?
Hmm...