Smoking Kidman Sparks Controversy

Sydney Morning Herald ^

[Lunatic Fringe]

Australian actress Nicole Kidman has raised the ire of anti-smoking groups by lighting up a cigarette during her press conference at the Cannes Film Festival.

Footage was beamed around the world yesterday of Kidman lighting up at the annual event while promoting her new movie, Dogville.

The Oscar-winning actress was immediately admonished by the film's Danish director Lars Von Trier, but Kidman shrugged her shoulders and kept smoking.

It appears Kidman has smoked for years, with newspaper reports dating back to 1994 saying she had been spotted smoking.

Anti-smoking groups today said the image of Kidman smoking was a free advertisement for the tobacco industry and glamorised the habit.

Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) chief executive Anne Jones said Kidman was perpetuating the image that smoking was associated with glamour, independence and success.

"It's worth millions to the tobacco industry to have celebrities smoking," she told AAP.

"It's unfortunate that she smoked at a media conference that potentially went to hundreds of millions of people around the world.

Ms Jones said she would write to Kidman's Australian publicist highlighting the actress's responsibilities as a role model to millions of young women.

"She does have a right to smoke, but what I'm just saying is that smoking in front of millions of people contains this unfortunate association between smoking and glamour and success," she said.

"I will leave it to her to decide how she wants to use that information.

"I think given her role model status it would be really greatly appreciated by health groups and maybe parents in general if she didn't smoke in such a way."

Six thousand Australian women die each year from smoking-related illnesses, and 21 per cent of all Australian women over the age of 18 smoke.

Australian Democrats Senator Lyn Allison said tobacco use cost $21 billion a year in Australia and Kidman should use her position to discourage smoking.

"Many of Nicole Kidman's fans are young women and they have particularly alarming rates of addiction to tobacco," she said.

Senator Allison called on the federal government to fulfill its promise to introduce legislation requiring all films depicting smoking to carry a warning.

AAP

[ewing]

[Drew68]

ping to the puff_list for smoking related articles

[ewing]

[RicocheT]

Keep the pictures coming. Broad band connections are wonderful. Woe to 56k users - Losers!

[Pearls Before Swine]

Well, that appears to answer THAT question.

[ewing]

DSL is a godsend..

[ewing]

[laredo44]

Australian Democrats Senator Lyn Allison said tobacco use cost $21 billion a year in Australia

Prove it you lying loser. [Not you LF, the moronic "Senator"]

[Drew68]

Man. I'm in the mountains of Colorado and the fastest I can get is 28.8 (even with my 56.6k modem!)
I'm Looking into WiFi.

[kstewskis]

Anti-smoking groups today said the image of Kidman smoking was a free advertisement for the tobacco industry and glamorised the habit.

Sure, it is now that the anti-smoking crowd raised a stink about it.

[MEGoody]

So it's okay for celebs to live together and have children outside of marriage (serially, I might add). It's okay for them to pose bare naked for magazine covers (a la Demi Moore). It's okay for celebs to run off at the mouth, insulting the President without basis (a la Babs Streisand). But it's not okay for them to smoke.

Weird.

[ewing]

Have you tried a cable TV company?

[Lunatic Fringe]

Nicole *is* a smoking babe... I'm glad she is considering getting out of the movie business and wanting to settle down with her family.

By the way, Nicole... I'm single.

*wink* Just in case she is a lurker *grin*

[ewing]

I think Nic is currently seeing a fellow named 'Q-Tip.'

[geopyg]

Nicolle was asked if she smoked after having sex. She replied "well...I don't know..I've never looked."

[husky ed]

Have you tried a cable TV company?

The famous words of my cable company "What's a cable modem?"

And I did have DirecPc, but since I am disable I don't have enough money for that anymore.

[honeygrl]

"Yea, and her dress is a put down to those women who are out of shape. "

Yep, they should all wear mumus when in the spotlight now. Or maybe on of those Burka things.

[ewing]

Probably wouldn't be cost effective to lay DSL lines in the mountains..

[honeygrl]

She should've flicked the butt out into the grass too just to piss off the evironmentalists while she was at it. I would've had a great laugh over it. And from what I've read she was raised Catholic and with Tom had agreed to raise the kids Scientologists because he wanted that but once they split one of the first things she did was take the kids to Catholic church with her. This smoking thing definitely makes me like her more. I've always been kinda iffy about her but now I definitely like her.

[honeygrl]

" It's okay for them to pose bare naked for magazine covers (a la Demi Moore). "

I thought the pregnant naked demi on the magazine was great. I know I felt seriously ugly when I was pregnant with my son and stuff like that helped remind me that pregnancy is beautiful. The entire 10 months (pregnancy is really 10 mths long but male docs have conspired to make the world believe it's only 9mths) I wouldn't allow any magazines in my apartment with skinny women on the cover. My poor hubby had to go months with me fussing if he even looked at a website with skinny women on it. I was horrible. LOL I wasn't like that with my daughter though because i only gained 22 Lbs. With my son I had gained 40Lbs. Oddly, I went back down to a size 2 3mths after my son was born and now after my daughter I am still a size 8 and she's 7mths old. It's starting to piss me off at myself for not having any energy to exercise.