Christian Bale arrested and questioned on assault complaints.

Ok, I know everyone reported this yesterday, but we decided to wait a day to see what additional information would surface on this story to clarify the situation.

Let's take a look at a very confusing chapter in the star of The Dark Knight, and upcoming movie, Terminator: Salvation, Christian Bale, because this needs a single point of information that up until now, has been scattered about in spurious updates and snippets of news throughout the day since it broke on Tuesday morning, here in the U.S.

Reports say that Christian Bale's mother and sister filed assault complaints in regards to an altercation that took place at a west London hotel on Sunday.  The allegation of his verbally lashing out at his mother, Jenny Bale and his sister, Sharon Bale, was made at a police station in South England on Monday.  The incident was passed on to the famous Scotland Yard for processing.

Assault of the verbal kind is what mostly took place, and the only other "assault" that took place is when Christian pushed aside his mom to get past her and some think it was more of a brush past than a push.

Out of respect of the premiere of The Dark Knight on Monday, Scotland Yard held their questioning until Tuesday.  Cops with respect for the important things in life, you have to like that!

By appointment, Bale showed up at the police station where they arrested him and questioned him on the assault complaint.

Two quick points:  In England, they arrest everyone for questioning.  Being arrested is a formality and not a sentence or suspicion of guilt.   Additionally, the assault referenced is of the verbal kind.  If you remember the term "assault and battery."  Assault would be me telling you I am going to pop you (the adjective) and battery is the act of doing it (the verb!).  In England, verbal assault is a crime.

After the questioning, a respectful 10-man police contingent escorted Bale out the back of the Belgravia precinct station, with a later appointment scheduled for September.

At first his mother and sister were doing the no comment thing.  I suspect that until they figured out whatever it was they were going to now say, with the cat out of the bag, as it were.  I'm thinking at this point in the game, it's a little late for "no comment."

Later in the day (Tuesday), statements that came from both his mother and sister echoed the same script:  That there was an incident, it's a family situation, it's very sensitive and the police are handling it.

Christian Bale's London-based law firm, Schillings issued a statement denying that an assault took place.

This complaint sure does seem out of place for the Christian Bale we know and seems more in line with his character from American Psycho if anything, yet there are little snippets about that can attribute to the challenging of my own perception of his projected image.

He lost his cool while filming the Terminator 4 film in New Mexico, where Bale screamed at the director that he will kick his a** after Bale thought he screwed up a shot.  It's been noted he seemed tired.  And it's been once referenced that he himself told E! Online, "If everyone really knew what a jerk I am in real life, I wouldn't be so adored in the slightest."

If this were a Spears or Lohan family thing, I'd suspect the usual need for media and the desire to pad the coffers with tabloid paychecks, but I can't say that's been the history of his family.  Yet now that he's a world wide namesake, who knows what that can do to family.  Money makes people funny, and not in the funny way.  Take it as you may, that's all the dirt I can dig up.  I fail at gossip reporting.  Sigh.

The latest update from Wednesday, the 23rd, indicates that this all came about from an alleged insult his mother lobbed at his wife, and from there, Bale returned the favor with a verbal lashing.  Ya don't bash the wife folks.  It's as simple as that.

Sources:  TV Guide, Yahoo Movies, TMZ, Yahoo News, People.com, TMZ, ET ONline, TMZ