The Truth About the Richard Gere-Gerbil Story
Source: AOL.ca
Posted: 10/09/08 3:00PM
Filed Under: Celebrity
The legend has clung to Gere's name since at least the mid-80s, when he was still married to Cindy Crawford. Stories claim that the Pretty Woman star was admitted for an emergency "gerbilectomy" at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in California decades ago.
Celebrity Urban Legends |
For two decades, Jamie Lee Curtis has been saddled with rumors that she was a hermaphrodite at birth (or, as it has been more crudely put, "born with a penis"). This has never been proven, though believers point out that Curtis adopted her two children instead of conceiving and has a unisex first name. None of which, of course, proves anything. |
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After years of speculation, the man himself finally bluntly denied the story. In a recent interview, Gere said, "I stopped reading the press a long time ago. There is an infamous ‘Gere stuck a hamster [sic] up his bum’ urban myth. I just decided not to pay attention to any of it. It’s a waste of energy."
An anonymous source helped spread the Gere gerbil myth with fake press releases supposedly issued by the Association for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, claiming that the actor had abused a gerbil. Today you can even find a MySpace page dedicated to the animal in question.
No facts surfaced when a reporter from The National Enquirer attempted to legitimise the story.
Contrary to popular belief and according to Snopes.com, "gerbil-stuffing" is not an actual sexual practice. Like legends such as that of the promiscuous rock star, the myth has been applied to a number of public figures thought to be homosexual.
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