Here's the thing though. If it's a deliberate mislead, that means a few things:
1) Naruto was lying in chapter 3. Sakura was right to treat him like sh-t.
2) Sai and Yamato didn't know what they were talking about, even though Sakura, someone who knows Naruto best, was more than ready to believe their observations.
3) Kishi more time misleading fans than actually developing his characters. That's not only an admission to being a jerk, but also a bad writer. Don't get wrong. Misleads are a good writing technique, but only when they serve an overall purpose and when there's enough cues for us to have seen that it was a mislead in the first place (i.e. actual development for Hinata). There was none here.
4) 3 out of 4 databooks were lying.
If this moronic interview turns out to be true, I'm done with this series for good. Won't even promote it via fanfic/fanart.
1.Nah, I don't think it was a lie. Kishimoto admitted before that he wanted to make Team Seven into a Nerima Daikon Brothers copy, so this one surely wasn't lie.
2.Actually, Yamato and Sai never made any sense. When Yamato made that "I believe you" comment he made that "analysis" about Sakura after 2 days together-ling without knowing anything about her feelings for Sasuke and the bond between the members of Team Seven, so that comment from Yamato was obliviously a fanservice shipping moment. About Sai... all of his knowledges are from books, he was living under the false believe that Naruto only wanted to save Sasuke because of Sakura, that's why Sai told Sakura into freeing Naruto from the promise.
3.That's why I love even Kubo! Didn't he made a foreshadowing that the Hollow Ichigo is Ichigo's real Zanpakuto? Yup, he did!
4.All Databooks are bad! The best example is Databook 3, where it was stated that Obito and Rin became genins at age 9 while Kakashi became chunin at age 5. Yet, in the manga they were taking the chunin exam together despite Kakashi was supposed to be a chunin already 4-5 years before Rin and Obito could leave the academy! So yes, that's why I can't believe in Databooks anymore! Also, Neji had Earth Style nature yet didn't use it to protect Naruto and Hinata? B*tch please!
Well, my theory is that this interview was supposed to be just a "revenge" againts those (truly) fanatic NS fans who were harrasing him and his assisstants since the end of the manga. Yeah, taking revenge on all NS fans was brutal, but if we see how much death threats and harrassing were sent to him and his assisstants it could be understand that Kishimoto could be angered because of those blinded idiots. I am sure he will make it clear and accept that this was just an anger-unleash because of some truly stupid and fanatic NS fans (because idiot fanatics are everywhere).