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We really don't know what Fashion Monitor Toronto is, or why they'd run this seeming Tom Cruise parody story alongside more believable ones about Burt Reynolds treating his wrinkles and Jessica Simpson selling treadmills. But we do know this: Cruise has always seemed like an old soul, and we'd secretly suspected that the words he utters each time a camera and microphone are pointed in his direction came from a mysterious and ancient place:

Scientologist Tom Cruise revealed that he is much older than the forty three years he has spent in his present body. Tom Cruise noted that he is "old beyond reckoning." What's more, his current life is "probably one of the least satisfying" he has led. [...]

Cruise said he became aware that he "had been here before," when he read the complete works of Shakespeare in a month, despite being dyslexic, not long after dropping out of high school.

"Shakespeare was deja vu for me," said Tom Cruise. "It was so cool. I felt as if I had seen his words already, knew them all by heart. Then, after I began studying scientology, I realized the words had come from my heart in a previous life. That's why I say that as glorious and enviable as my present life is, making "War of the Worlds" and all those other great movies can't compare to writing "Romeo and Juliet" or the sonnets.

Perhaps Cruise (if he even said these things—brain...melting...trying to discern satire from reality) was a little swept up in the moment, for even the greatest works of Shakespeare pale in comparison to the poetry of a single bottle of Bacardi arcing effortlessly over the actor's shoulder in Cocktail.

UPDATE: OK, whew. A very helpful reader tracked down the original, fake story for us on this site. Brain temporarily unmelted.