well, he wasn't at her bday and as soon as that information leaked there was a urgent meeting held between rob's and kirsten's team. funny....
as for him becoming a puppet in the process (as far as ted's asked). the pics of them holding hands came out as soon as the rumor of them breaking up appeared. on the other hand, (in ted's opinion) rob's doing the pr himself or at least appears to have his opinion voiced, so as soon as the rumor of him hooking with nikki appeared he was intentionly trying to have him papped with kirsten (the one in the cab) and it seems that irked his menagement which tried to cover up the photo (the same thing goes for the pic which seemed photoshoped, you can see someone was blurred out of the pic - there's a black spot in the pic where it seems to be another person, and ted has been implying that kirsten was blurred out - a deal with the paps of his menagement).
this is all what ted's implying, not me (it all sounds soooo twi-hardish and i'm not a fan to that extend i'm afraid, i just enjoy observing how multidimensional the whole hollywood is

).
it's been quite interesting from a pr perspective of things.