Marriages and relationships Cruise splits his time between homes in
Beverly Hills, California;
Clearwater, Florida; and the south of England, where he has lived in various places such as
Central London,
Dulwich,
East Grinstead, and
Biggin Hill. In the early-to-mid-1980s, Cruise had relationships with
Melissa Gilbert,
Rebecca De Mornay,
Patti Scialfa, and
Cher. at the 1989 Oscars Cruise married actress
Mimi Rogers on May 9, 1987. They divorced on February 4, 1990. Rogers had grown up in
Scientology and was one of its "
auditors"; they met when Cruise became one of her clients. In a 1993
Playboy interview, Rogers discussed her split from Cruise and said that he had been considering becoming a monk, which affected their intimacy. Rogers later retracted the comments and claimed she had been misinterpreted. According to a friend of Rogers, "Tom, his agents and certain studios were furious about what Mimi said in
Playboy. She was told in no uncertain terms that her career would be over unless she put things right." Cruise filed for divorce two days later, and their marriage was dissolved later that year, with Cruise citing irreconcilable differences. Kidman stated that their marriage failed because at the time, she "was a child" who "needed to grow up." According to former church spokesperson and board member Mike Rinder, the Church of Scientology used various means to push the couple to break up, including pressuring Cruise into more auditing and tapping Kidman's phone. In a 2007 interview with
Marie Claire, Kidman noted the incorrect reporting of a miscarriage early in her marriage: "It was wrongly reported as
miscarriage by everyone who picked up the story. So it's huge news, and it didn't happen. I had a miscarriage at the end of my marriage, but I had an
ectopic pregnancy at the beginning of my marriage." Cruise was next romantically linked with
Penélope Cruz, his co-star in
Vanilla Sky (2001). Their three-year relationship ended in 2004. An article in the October 2012 issue of
Vanity Fair stated that several sources have said that after the breakup with Cruz, Scientologist leaders launched a secret project to find Cruise a new girlfriend. According to those sources, a series of "auditions" of Scientologist actresses resulted in a short-lived relationship with Iranian-British actress
Nazanin Boniadi, who subsequently left Scientology. Scientology and Cruise's lawyers issued strongly worded denials and threatened to sue, accusing
Vanity Fair of "shoddy journalism" and "religious bigotry". Journalist
Roger Friedman later reported that he received an email from director and ex-Scientologist
Paul Haggis confirming the story. in May 2009 In April 2005, Cruise began dating actress
Katie Holmes. On April 27 that year, Cruise and Holmes—dubbed
TomKat by the media—made their first public appearance together in
Rome. A month later, Cruise publicly declared his love for Holmes on
The Oprah Winfrey Show; he jumped on Winfrey's yellow couch and stood there to make the announcement. On October 6, 2005, Cruise and Holmes announced they were expecting a child. In April 2006, their daughter Suri Noelle was born. On November 18, 2006, Holmes and Cruise were married at the 15th-century castle
Castello Orsini-Odescalchi in
Bracciano, in a Scientologist ceremony attended by many Hollywood stars. Their publicists said the couple had "officialized" their marriage in Los Angeles the day before the Italian ceremony. There has been widespread speculation that their marriage was arranged by the Church of Scientology.
David Miscavige, the head of Scientology, served as Cruise's best man. On June 29, 2012, Holmes filed for divorce from Cruise. On July 9, the couple signed a divorce settlement worked out by their lawyers. New York law requires all divorce documents remain sealed, so the exact terms of the settlement are not publicly available. Cruise stated that ex-wife Katie Holmes divorced him in part to protect the couple's daughter Suri from Scientology and that Suri is no longer a practicing member of the organization.
Litigation In 1998, Cruise successfully sued the
Daily Express, a British tabloid which alleged that his marriage to Kidman was a
sham designed to cover up his homosexuality. In May 2001, Cruise filed a lawsuit against
gay porn actor Chad Slater. Slater had told the celebrity magazine
Actustar that he had been involved in an affair with Cruise. This claim was strongly denied by Cruise, and Slater was ordered to pay to Cruise in damages after Slater declared he could not afford to defend himself against the suit and would therefore default. Cruise requested a default judgment, and in January 2003, a Los Angeles judge decided against Slater after he admitted that his claims were false. Cruise also sued
Bold Magazine publisher Michael Davis for , because Davis had alleged that he had video that would prove Cruise was gay. The suit was dropped in exchange for a public statement by Davis that the video was not of Cruise, and that Cruise was heterosexual. In 2006, Cruise sued
cybersquatter Jeff Burgar to obtain control of the TomCruise.com domain name. When owned by Burgar, the domain redirected to information about Cruise on Celebrity1000.com. The decision to turn TomCruise.com over to Cruise was handed down by the
World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) on July 5, 2006. In 2009, magazine editor Michael Davis Sapir filed a suit charging that his phone had been wiretapped at Cruise's behest. That suit was dismissed by a Central Civil West court judge in Los Angeles on the grounds that the
statute of limitations had expired on Sapir's claim. In October 2012, Cruise filed a lawsuit against
In Touch and
Life & Style magazines for
defamation after they claimed Cruise had "abandoned" his six-year-old daughter. During deposition, Cruise admitted that "he didn't see his daughter for 110 days". The suit was settled the following year.
Scientology advocacy Cruise was converted to
Scientology by his first wife,
Mimi Rogers, in 1986 and became an outspoken advocate for
Church of Scientology in the 2000s. His involvement in the organization was leaked by the tabloid
Star in 1990, and he publicly announced he followed Scientology in a 1992 interview with
Barbara Walters. Cruise has said that Scientology, through its teaching method
Study Technology, helped him overcome his
dyslexia. Cruise has been a close friend of Scientology leader
David Miscavige since the 1980s. Several years after Cruise started studying Scientology, the organization's leaders promised to share some Scientology secrets with him, In 1999,
Marty Rathbun was sent by David Miscavige to convince Cruise to return to the Church and continue his studies. In late 2004, David Miscavige created the Scientology
Freedom Medal of Valor and awarded it to Cruise for this work. Former Scientologist
Paul Haggis has claimed that Cruise attempted to convert several celebrities to Scientology, including
James Packer,
Victoria and
David Beckham,
Jada Pinkett,
Will Smith, and
Steven Spielberg.
Political lobbying In addition to promoting various programs to introduce people to Scientology, Cruise campaigned for Scientology to be recognized as a religion in Europe. In 2005, the
Council of Paris revealed that Cruise had lobbied French Interior Minister
Nicolas Sarkozy and Senate President
Jean-Claude Gaudin; they described Cruise as a militant spokesman for Scientology and barred any further dealings with him.
Politics Cruise donated to
Democratic candidate
Hillary Clinton during her
2000 Senate campaign in New York. In October 2000, he attended and spoke at a birthday
fundraising event for Clinton, alongside other major entertainment figures. While promoting
Valkyrie in January 2009, Cruise stated that the recent
election of
Barack Obama as president brought "hope, absolute hope" to the United States and urged Americans to support the new administration. In 2025, Cruise declined an offer from President
Donald Trump to be honored by the
Kennedy Center. Later that year, it was reported that Cruise avoided seeking assistance from Trump for an outer space film project involving
NASA, which led to its cancellation.
Controversies Criticism of psychiatry In January 2004, Cruise said, "I think
psychiatry should be outlawed." In 2005, he criticized actress
Brooke Shields for using the
antidepressant Paxil to treat
postpartum depression following the birth of her first daughter. Cruise denied the existence of chemical imbalances in the brain and described psychiatry as a form of
pseudoscience. In response, Shields argued that Cruise "should stick to saving the world from aliens and let women who are experiencing postpartum depression decide what treatment options are best for them," and further called Cruise's comments "a disservice to mothers everywhere". In a June 2005 episode of NBC's
Today, Cruise reiterated his views, leading to a heated exchange with interviewer
Matt Lauer. In August 2006, Cruise apologized in person to Shields for his comments. Medical authorities viewed Cruise's comments as contributing to the social stigma surrounding mental illness. According to
The Lancet, Cruise "may be right that psychotropic drugs are overused, sometimes misused; and that lifestyle changes (and exercise for depression) can be helpful. But he is wrong, as a celebrity, to add to the burden of those with a mental illness, who often fear seeking or continuing treatment because of the stigma still attached to their condition." Spielberg had reportedly mentioned in Cruise's presence the name of a doctor friend who prescribed psychiatric medication. Shortly thereafter, the doctor's office was
picketed by Scientologists, reportedly angering Spielberg.
YouTube video removal On January 15, 2008, a video produced by Church of Scientology featuring an interview with Cruise was posted on YouTube by the
Anonymous-linked group
Project Chanology, showing Cruise discussing what being a Scientologist means to him. Church of Scientology said the video had been "pirated and edited", and was taken from a three-hour video produced for members of Scientology. YouTube removed the Cruise video from their site under threat of litigation. It was subsequently reinstated on the site, and as of June 2020, the video has achieved more than 15 million views.
Purported influence In March 2004, Cruise's publicist of 14 years,
Pat Kingsley, resigned. Cruise's next publicist was Lee Anne DeVette, his sister, who was herself a Scientologist. She served in that role until November 2005. DeVette was replaced with Paul Bloch from the publicity firm
Rogers and Cowan. Such restructuring was seen as a move to curtail publicity of his views on Scientology, as well as the controversy surrounding his relationship with Katie Holmes.
Lawrence Wright's 2013 book
Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief and
Alex Gibney's 2015
documentary adaptation of the book cast a spotlight on Cruise's role in Scientology. The book and the film both state that the Scientology organization groomed romantic partners for Cruise and that Cruise used
Sea Org and
Rehabilitation Project Force workers as a source of free labor. In the film, Cruise's former auditor
Mark Rathbun says that Cruise's then-wife
Nicole Kidman was wiretapped on Cruise's suggestion, which Cruise's lawyer denies. Cruise's ex-girlfriend
Nazanin Boniadi later compared the Scientology organization's auditioning of women to date Cruise and experiences with him to "
white slavery". ==See also==