According to the Daily Mail - who rounded up some interesting quotes on the matter - it appears to be a very real possibility. To say Travolta's had a rough go of it recently would be putting it very, very lightly.

On the business side of things, Travolta's big role this year performed under studio expectations. A complete aside, when you consider his personal life:

His son Jett - reportedly autistic, a diagnosis the Church of Scientology refuses to dignify - passed away earlier this year. Travolta defied Scientology and acknowledged it. Some sleazy gossip website put together a theory that enlists the idea of Travolta not only having a gay lover, but the gay lover - his son's nanny - being a primary cause of his son's death. Which is besides the fact that someone tried to extort him over documents involved in his son's transportation, and his wife might've tried (successfully) to get Roger Friedman fired by going to the top brass at Fox over Friedman's comments on Scientology.

All of this gives the Daily Mail's report some ground to walk on, when they note:

His distress, say sources close to him, has been compounded by the first cracks in his 34-year relationship with the Church of Scientology, the cult-like religion of which Travolta is a prominent and generous benefactor. And there are dark mutterings that if he carries out private threats to leave, the organisation will go public with embarrassing details of his private life, including, it is claimed, allegations of past homosexual relationships. Sources in the U.S. disclosed to me this week that his son's sudden death has 'deeply shaken' Travolta's faith in the strange sect, which makes wild claims about its ability to cure a variety of physical and mental disorders.

There's more talk of Travolta taking late night drives by himself, and being in a "state of constant distress." There's the very evident weight Travolta's gained. There's the memory of Scientology's scary-ass leader David Miscavage slagging on Travolta's sexuality:

Earlier, the prestigious Time magazine also reported allegations made by Richard Aznaran, the former security head of Scientology, that the Church's leader, David Miscavige, had repeatedly joked about Travolta's 'promiscuous homosexual behaviour'.

And then there's the fact that Scientology has a well known history of intimidation of the physical and emotional stripe. This goes without saying, but: Travolta's donated millions of dollars, and what could only be thousands of hours to the church throughout his life. Shit, he made Battlefield Earth.

For a celebrity of Travolta's stature to renounce Scientology would be massive, for both parties. Even rumors of Travolta's potential departure from the religion are pretty damning. Granted, it'll be a difficult path if he chooses to take it - the resistance he'll encounter from the highest levels of the religion are potentially fiscally, emotionally, and physically dangerous to his livelihood - but one that could shake Scientology to its absolute core.

Is John Travolta cracking up? [Daily Mail]

The report was obtained by the National Enquirer. Travolta's use of the term "autistic" seems to be a break from church doctrine, which teaches that pyschiatric diagnoses are fake ailments invented by Nazi psychiatrists so they can give people drugs to keep them from realizing their true potential of controlling the physical world with their minds.

Prior to Jett's death, his mother Kelly Preston attributed his problems to a rare disorder called Kawasaki disease and to "environmental toxins" from carpet-cleaners. She claimed that a Scientological detoxification regime had helped to ease his symptoms.

After Jett's death, Scientology representatives denied that the church has taken a stance on autism, saying, "It's medicine. The church deals with the spirit. If people have a medical problem or a physical ailment, they go to a doctor. It's church policy that they do so and they get that addressed." But autism is a psychiatric disorder described in DSM-IV, psychiatry's diagnostic bible. While a case could be made that Travolta was only using the term generally, to describe a disorder with physical roots that he thought could be explained, Scientology-style, by toxins, it's certainly unusual for a high-profile representative of the church to use the word.

Cognizant of the fact that they had landed a big fish, the ladies of The View were respectful to a fault today (even Barbara Walters!), though Elisabeth prefaced each and every question to Cruise with such slobbering, near-sexual praise you would have thought they'd dug up Ronald Reagan. Finally, forty minutes into the show, Walters brought her tear-inducing powers out of retirement and brought up the younger Travolta's death, quizzing Cruise on whether Scientologists actually eschew medicine. "It's actually the opposite," Cruise said, sketching out a scenario where church higher-ups tell Scientologists to go get their afflictions "handled." Consider that charge vaguely cleared up, then! Lisa Marie, your services are no longer necessary.

• The View [ABC]

Mainly because as an overcome, emotional Cruise fumbles for words while addressing the tragedy, Us Weekly prematurely ends their video clip with a sparkly ID bumper that is deeply inappropriate, given the circumstances. We'd encourage them to take a cue from 24, which ends its most tragic episodes with a respectfully silent clock, but we admire the sheer, campy chutzpah it took to watch this wrenching video and decide, "Needs more whimsy!"

• VIDEO: Tom Cruise: Jett Travolta's Death Is "Horrific" [Us]

The constantly changing versions of the events surrounding Jett's death have gripped the public's imagination because it is so congruent with the story of his father's life. John Travolta would have us believe that he is normal; that he is not a member of a crazy cult; and that he is straight. At least two of those things are false.

Let's count the inconsistencies, which extend back long before Jett's tragic passing:

• Jett's parents, John Travolta and Kelly Preston, adherents of Scientology, have long maintained that Jett suffered from Kawasaki disease, an immune disorder which causes inflammation of blood vessels. But Kawasaki disease is not linked to seizures, according to medical experts.
• When they weren't blaming Kawasaki disease, they publicly maintained Jett's health was fine, even though many in Hollywood believed Jett suffered from autism. And suddenly, after his death, we learn that Jett wasn't fine; rather, he was constantly supervised by two nannies and a baby monitor.
• Autism would explain Jett's disturbingly affectless appearance in public; about a third of people with autism also suffer seizures. Travolta and Preston are followers of Scientology, which believes conditions like autism are all in the victim's head — that they are "degraded beings" requiring "purification." Preston has said in the past that Jett underwent a Scientology purification, which reportedly involves high doses of niacin.
• Police in the Bahamas said Jett, who was found unconscious late on New Year's Day in his parents' condo and died at a hospital shortly afterward, had struck his head, and reported blood on the scene. The nanny who found him, Jeff Kathrein, a Scientologist wedding photographer hired by Jett's parents, John Travolta and Kelly Preston, was once spotted in an intimate kiss with Jett's father. Police said Jett was alone for hours, after last being seen the evening of January 1; a family lawyer maintained that Kathrein, who slept eight feet away from Jett, found him almost right away.
• A funeral director hired by the family said there was no sign of a bruise and that Jett's body "looked great." The cause of death on Jett's death certificate was listed simply as a seizure.
• Two chartered planes and a police hearse, ostensibly carrying Jett's remains, waited on the tarmac Monday, as Bahamian police blocked access. It was a ruse: Jett's body was being cremated at the time, and the family planned to fly his ashes back to Florida on Tuesday.

Jett, in reality, had a rounder face. But so what? The need to airbrush away Jett's chin is the perfect metaphor for the pathetic misdirections and deceptions the Travoltas have engaged in. What they're covering up is not worth covering up. This is not some grand crusade for the truth — which in the end is the simple and tragic tale of a teen boy dying too young. The lies, big and small, that Travolta tells aren't for Jett. They're for him to maintain his fake public image. He asks us, out of politeness or gullibility, to swallow it whole.

Yes, everyone wants to let the family grieve. Let them grieve — but Jett Travolta is the only one who should lie in peace.

Employing a creative, whimsical use of apostrophes and spaces, Presley asserts that uninformed observers (most likely psychiatrists or tax collectors) shouldn't use the younger Travolta's death as an opportunity to bash the church:

Folks, as popular as it has been to discriminate and ridicule Scientology and Scientologist's in the recent past , Now is NOT the time.

I realize that there is a lot of mis information out there about the subject which has caused a lot of stone throwing but we are not still in the dark ages and it is still an Unconstitutional Injustice to partake in and encourage such condemnation.

Among most of the crazy made up garbage that goes around about it , It is not true that Scientologist's "Don't believe in " medical care , medicine or medical Doctors and that may have something to do with this terrible tragedy.

Just like anyone else, If one is sick , they go to the doctor, If a medication will make it better then they take it.

If they don't then they are an idiot and you can't blame their religion.

Presley then added, "I was married to Michael Jackson, remember? You think I made it through that with just niacin and the support of Leah Remini? Let's just say I'm on a first-name basis with the pharmacist at Sav-On (Hi, Luisa!) and leave it at that."

• Now Is Not The Time. [Myspace]

We're not sure if the candor of medics and funeral home staff in the Bahamas is just part of the regional flavor or what, but if it wasn't before, it definitely is after Restview Memorial Mortuary assistant director Glen Campbell disclosed that Jett's death certificate lists "seizure" as the 16-year-old's cause of death. He had no signs of head trauma, hematoma or other symptoms of a blow he was suspected to have suffered at the time of that seizure — and which were described by the EMT chief who administered to him the morning of Jan. 2.

"He tells The Associated Press that the body is in 'great condition,'" according to a report. "Campbell said the certificate was based on the autopsy findings, and gave no information on the cause of death beyond the word 'seizure.'" And ET sends late word over the transom that Jett will be cremated, with his ashes delivered to his parents tomorrow before their return to Florida. The end. We think. We hope.

• Death certificate: Travolta son killed by seizure [AP]

· Reports on Saturday revealed that Jett, 16, suffered a seizure at the Bahamian vacation home of his parents John Travolta and Kelly Preston. Travolta himself applied CPR until medics arrived; the EMT crew chief told Radar that Jett had a hematoma, suggesting a head blow, later confirmed by Travolta's lawyer and family friend Michael McDermott. There was "a minimum amount of blood," and Jett had no pulse. He was pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital. An autopsy is underway as of this writing.

· The day after it broke the story, TMZ followed up with word of a police investigation and pointing out conflicts between the Travoltas and investigators in the timeline preceding Jett's death. The Travoltas' nannies say Jett went to sleep at 6 p.m. on Jan. 1, and was discovered when one of the caretakers, Jeff Kathrein, awoke the next morning to find the teen unconscious on the bathroom floor. The police say Jett was last seen entering the bathroom at 11:30 p.m. — meaning he was undiscovered for up to 10 hours following his seizure. Naturally the Travolta camp went on the offensive, arguing that it was likely a second trip to the bathroom — after the caretakers were asleep — during which Jett collapsed.

· But who is Jeff Kathrein, anyway? Is he, as our East Coast cousin declaimed, "Travolta's rumored gay lover"? Or, as the LAT points out, an aspiring celebrity photographer who nannies to pay the bills? Shocker: The Travolta camp isn't commenting. But Kathrein will shoot your nuptials if you're in the market for a wedding photographer.

· Meanwhile, Scientology's enemies latched on to the opportunity to eviscerate its proponents, with Mark Ebner digging up a 2007 interview in which the father of an autistic girl alll but alleged child abuse in the Travoltas' treatment of Jett, whose own severe case of autism was long-suspected by outsiders but never acknowledged by the family. Instead, Jett's non-responsive condition was attributed to Kawasaki syndrome, a rare physical ailment that excused the Travoltas from treating Jett with CO$-condemned psychiatric drugs. (He did, according to McDermott, take anti-seizure medication for a while, which soon failed and whose regimen was ended.) With the exception of brother Joey, who studied autism for a documentary and believed Jett suffered from the condition, the family maintains its diagnosis.

· And a fascinating comments thread at Anonymous's Web site describes the "handlings" and $1,000-an-hour audits the Travoltas might have in front of them as part of Scientology's mourning rituals.

· Finally, it wouldn't be a celebrity death unless someone exploited it for their cause. Autism United sent an e-mail blast this morning asking Travolta and Preston to come clean for the sake of "15,000 parents of children with autism" — to be expected, we suppose, at least moreso than this pot-smelling press release from the publication Cannazine:

Research published in an issue of Science journal published in 2003, found that receptors in the brain, which respond to naturally-occurring cannabis-like chemicals (cannabinoids) made by the body, guarded neurons from being damaged by overstimulation.

Study co-author Beat Lutz, from Germany's Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, said the group's experiments on mice followed anecdotal and clinical tests of cannabis to treat seizures.

"In my opinion, there are certain forms of epilepsy where patients may feel relief from the use of cannabis," Dr Lutz said.

Maybe. Has anyone consulted Dr. Denis Leary on the matter?

Neither the cause of death nor any other details are available, though we imagine Anonymous and other Scientology critics will drop in with their own suspicions by the time you finish reading this sentence. Jett was long rumored to be autistic, a condition that went untreated while his parents instead claimed he suffered from Kawasaki syndrome — a children's illness characterized by fever, rash, swollen lymph nodes, and potentially leading to heart disease. Developing...

UPDATE (1:21 p.m.): Reuters reports that Jett suffered a seizure at the family's vacation home. Travolta attorney Michael Ossi confirmed the details, adding that attempts were made to revive him, but he died at the scene.

[Photo: SplashNewsOnline via TMZ]

• John Travolta's Son Dies [TMZ]