A fascinating dust-up has kicked off over at the Guardian. A few weeks ago, Xan Brooks, film writer and associate editor, ran an interview with Denzel Washington. Brooks quoted Washington as remarking that there were very few African-American actors in Hollywood when he started out. “For whatever reason, I never befriended any white actors,” he continued.

The story created a minor kerfuffle on outer moons of the US media system. Then, “one of Washington’s public relations representatives” was quoted on Yahoo saying they had been in the room and that Brooks had left out a vital quote. The representative noted: “The part they fail to mention was that after [Washington] said he’d ‘never befriended any white actors’, he mentioned ‘except’, and listed Tom Hanks, Mel Gibson, Julia Roberts etc.”

Brooks returned to his audio file and determined that Washington had said no such thing, and claims there was no publicist in the room.

Things got stranger still. Denzel’s personal publicist then contacted the Guardian to say that he (the publicist) had nothing to do with the statement. Very curious.