This image was lost some time after publication.

When Jack Nicholson's strap-on first started making gossip sheet appearances last June, we feared that the actor's prosthetic member would burn too brightly too early, exhausting its buzz more than a year before its awards-worthy supporting turn in The Departed could be seen. But with the movie's release approaching, the up-and-coming dildo's publicist has wisely courted the tabloids again, pimping a crucial Rolling Stone mention to Page Six:

"I thought it would be more frightening if my character had a sexual component . . . so I called Marty up and said, 'Look, I just thought of what would be an interesting scene of [my character] having wild sex. And in this scene with two girls, one of the girls is wearing a strap-on' . . . This was my idea and improvisational, and Marty went for it."

While the strap-on may secretly resent Nicholson taking all the credit for launching its career, we're sure that it's happy to be getting the kind of pre-release publicity push usually reserved for above-the-title stars, which its savvy flack will soon spin into rumors that it's taking over the Mission: Impossible franchise from Tom Cruise and secretly dating Keira Knightley.

[Click here to see the uncensored, NSFW version of the fake-dick-slip image presented above—via Twitch.]