You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy!
The lack of control being felt by one of the most controlling personalities on the planet.
Tiger Woods isn’t just a man, he is an industry, reportedly worth a billion dollars. He is Nike. He is Cadillac. He is Gillette.
A commercial aired where children stared into the camera and proclaimed; “I AM TIGER WOODS!”
How important is privacy to Tiger Woods? It’s the name of his yacht for goodness sakes.
Tiger transcends sports, he is a cultural icon the world over. It use to be Muhammad Ali. It use to be Michael Jordan. Now it is Tiger Woods.
Unlike those fallible men, Tiger Woods only lets you see what he wants you to see. He is cold and calculating, whether it’s at a post match press conference, or at a public function for sick kids. Like a building with a shiny facade, you think you know what the inside of the structure is composed of, but do you really know anything?
Since Thanksgiving, El Tigre has been relentlessly chased by a paparazzi that knows how to dig up the dirt.
Days of salacious inneuendo and matrimonial discourse filled a news cycle hungry to chew it alive. Blogosphere idiots ran wild without so much as a fact. ESPN pretended “adultery” was a sports story because the prime figure plays sports. The story ran high on morning shows and was story two in the rundown of a nightly newscast where Obama sends 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan was the lead.
Tiger wanted it all to simply stop. He thought he could compell the coverage to cease. He thought he could make the news choppers stop circling his Florida mansion. He was wrong. This is a public relations wild fire that can only be stopped by a deluge or by consuming all the fuel in the forest.
Anonymous quotes filled the page and mysterious women started coming out of the wood work alleging this and alleging that.
Then Wednesday, the breathless voice mail revealed by USWEEKLY.COM.
The publication says the man we hear is Tiger Woods and he is leaving an incriminating voice mail on the phone of a hot looking brunette named Jaimee Grubbs.
Here is what the voice mail consists of:
Tiger: Hey, it’s Tiger, I need you to do me a huge favor, can you please, take your name off your phone, my wife went thru my phone and she might be calling you. So if you can, please take your name off that, and just have an unlisted number, on the voice mail, just your phone number, you have to do this for me quickly. It’s huge. OK. Bye.
Tiger sounds more like a kitten searching for a warm bowl of milk. He sounds like a man who knows his image is deflating fast. He sounds like a cheater trying to save a marriage that has suddenly crashed into the rocks.
According to Us Weekly; the woman Woods called claims that she and the golf superstar were having a 31 month affair.
The woman says she did not get a call from Woods’ wife, Elin Nordegren, but she did get a crazy, angry phone call from some unidentified woman who said: “You know who this is because you’re f**king my husband.”
With his mylar balloon sailing aimlessly through a sky of ridicule, Tiger had no option but to release this statement on his web site. The statement doesn’t answer all the questions, but it certainly allows you to see that this family has some work ahead of them.
TIGER WOODS STATEMENT
I have let my family down and I regret those transgressions with all of my heart. I have not been true to my values and the behavior my family deserves. I am not without faults and I am far short of perfect. I am dealing with my behavior and personal failings behind closed doors with my family. Those feelings should be shared by us alone.
Although I am a well-known person and have made my career as a professional athlete, I have been dismayed to realize the full extent of what tabloid scrutiny really means. For the last week, my family and I have been hounded to expose intimate details of our personal lives. The stories in particular that physical violence played any role in the car accident were utterly false and malicious. Elin has always done more to support our family and shown more grace than anyone could possibly expect.
But no matter how intense curiosity about public figures can be, there is an important and deep principle at stake which is the right to some simple, human measure of privacy. I realize there are some who don’t share my view on that. But for me, the virtue of privacy is one that must be protected in matters that are intimate and within one’s own family. Personal sins should not require press releases and problems within a family shouldn’t have to mean public confessions.
Whatever regrets I have about letting my family down have been shared with and felt by us alone. I have given this a lot of reflection and thought and I believe that there is a point at which I must stick to that principle even though it’s difficult.
I will strive to be a better person and the husband and father that my family deserves. For all of those who have supported me over the years, I offer my profound apology.
Will Nike care? I doubt it.
Will Elgin forgive him? Probably.
Will Tiger shank one into the gallery and blame it on personal concerns? One has to wonder.
Stay tuned because life for the most famous athlete in the world is about to get a lot more scrutinized.