Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson
It’s common knowledge that ‘The Rock’ loves spending his spare time in Abbottabad, Pakistan, right?
Even if this was the case (which NewsFeed doesn’t think is or will ever be true), reasons are emerging as to just how the heck Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson was able to break the news about Osama bin Laden’s death before the rest of us heard President Barack Obama tell the world during his hastily convened speech on Sunday night.
In case you were, ahem, living under a rock and didn’t know, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson tweeted at 10:24 pm Eastern time on Sunday (more than an hour before Obama’s speech, which was at 11:35 pm Eastern) that he, “Just got word that will shock the world–LAND OF THE FREE…home of the brave. DAMN PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN.”
(More on TIME.com: See the 140 Best Twitter Feeds)
Impressive stuff from a man whose resume contains mention of professional wrestling and appearing in Tooth Fairy. And the tooth (sorry, truth) is possibly stranger than fiction as, according to The Daily, it turns out that Johnson’s cousin is a Navy SEAL and, reportedly, couldn’t contain himself with the confidential news.
Indeed, back in 2008, ‘The Rock’ told the British tabloid, The Sun, that, “My cousin is a very proud Navy SEAL for ten years now and just got back from his third tour in Afghanistan.”
But NewsFeed must step in to ask some pertinent questions. Would his cousin have even been of a rank privy to being told about bin Laden’s death? And if the cousin somehow did find out, wouldn’t he have gotten sacked for leaking highly confidential information? What’s more, the tweet went out in the same minute as Keith Urbahn (both were tweeted at 10:24 pm Eastern, 7:24 pm Pacific, according to this screenshot, though the Rock tweeted 47 seconds later), the chief of staff to former Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Urbahn later tweeted that his source was a “connected network TV news producer,” so Johnson could have had similar in-the-know journalist friends. Plus, others had been speculating that Obama’s speech that night would announce bin Laden’s death. (Johnson hasn’t yet commented on whether his message was referring to bin Laden.)
But no matter what, it must feel pretty good to be ‘The Rock’ right now: people say he knew about earth-shatteringly important events of universal consequence before the rest of us, his new movie, Fast Five, took $83.6 million on its opening weekend and it was his birthday this week. In all senses, then, many happy returns. (Via The Atlantic Wire)
(More on TIME.com: See pictures of Navy SEALs in action)