Us Weekly claims actor Jason Bateman got booed for cutting in line for the iPhone. Jason denies it and Keith Olbermann's got his back—but people keep saying it happened. Come, let us untangle this knotted web of lies.

After Us Weekly reported Bateman "outraged more than 2000 people" by cutting in line—"the crowd freaked and booed, and he put his head down" said their anonymous source—the embattled Arrested Development actor responded by tweet:

To avenge "my friend Jason Bateman," Keith Olbermann named Us "worst person in the world" (bronze medal). He quoted Bateman and an Apple official saying there were no boos, concluding that the story was "tripe." So then Us bounced back today with a new report that Bateman is "lying":

"I heard commotion in the back. I thought someone was fighting," says Mayhew. "Then he strolls right on by with the Genius Bar guys and suddenly people in my area started to yell, 'What the hell is going on?'"

"It was loud, passive-aggressive anger. There was a chorus of boos and then people shouting, 'What?' and 'We've been here for hours!"

Who's telling the truth? And, isn't "loud, passive-aggressive anger" an oxymoron? To solve this mystery, we turned to Twitter, all-knowing oracle of modernity. We @-tweeted people who tweeted about standing in line with Bateman, to ask if they heard boos. Three out of four said yes—and one out of four indicted Us Weekly.

Meanwhile, TechBurrito blogger Alan Natale—who stood next to Bateman in line and wrote about the booing—stands by his claim that there were boos, and adds that Bateman's story about being harassed is hogwash:

Yes, when the Apple employee approached Jason and took him away from the exact position we were standing in line (two mall blocks away from the Apple Store/Apple Store entrance), as he was walking away those nearby me were groaning, making comments in MY earshot of his not having to wait in line and some boos. It was not a stadium crowd round of boos, rather characterized by remarks and boos here and there audible by me and mind you perhaps NOT by Jason as the distance between where he and I were standing in line increased as he was escorted away. Allow me to be clear, I was not near the entrance nor block in the mall where the Apple Store entrance is so I could not hear anything that went on there.

I went back to that particular Apple Store on Sunday and was speaking with one of the Apple Employees. We discussed it and he (I didn't get his name) reported to me, not knowing I was standing behind him the entire time in line, Jason claimed people kept coming up and "bugging him." That is entirely NOT true. In fact, nobody spoke to him nor approached him in the entire two hours I waiting in line behind him and obviously I arrived shortly after he did because I cued up a couple people behind him. Also, I only counted ONE (1) Paparazzo and one other person who took a picture of him - both from across the street from a distance of at least 40 feet- so no one bothered him.

CONCLUSION: Jason Bateman got booed for cutting in line at the Apple store. He may not have "outraged 2000 people" (not enough, at least, to make them risk their places in line with vocal unruliness), but Bateman's claim that "there wasn't one boo" is also false. Bateman, however, may not have known that: Like a dog whistle, the voices of plebeians are at a frequency celebrities do not hear, and besides, no man-made noise is capable of drowning out the sound of an iPhone-expectant Apple fanboy's own pounding heart in the moment before he gets his new toy.

Thus, we cannot call anyone an outright "liar" here, but we can call Keith Olbermann a namedropping wienerschnitzel, which is always satisfying. [image via WENN]