Truth about Tom Cruise’s family breakdown laid bare after estranged daughter Suri ditches name for UK acting gig
IT is one of showbiz’s most famous moments – Tom Cruise leaping on a sofa while telling Oprah Winfrey about dating Katie Holmes.
“I’m in love,” the Mission: Impossible actor yelled, giddy with excitement as he flailed his arms about.
It was May 2005 and Tom, who divorced fellow Hollywood A-lister Nicole Kidman in 2001, had been dating Dawson’s Creek beauty Katie for just a month.
It seemed the love was mutual, with Katie revealing she was taking lessons in Scientology, a controversial religion founded by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard and beloved by her husband.
“I’m really excited about it,” she said, while Tom emphasised: “She makes her own decisions.”
And it seemed TomKat, as they were nicknamed, were flourishing.
Just 11 months after his dramatic declaration of love, their daughter Suri was born.
Katie and Tom wed in November 2006, but after five and a half years of marriage, she apparently blindsided her husband when she unexpectedly filed for divorce in June 2012 because of Scientology and its impact on her daughter.
And Suri, now 20, appears to have made up her own mind about her dad, dropping his surname in favour of her mum’s middle name, Noelle.
The move emerged after she publicly registered to vote in Pennsylvania, where she studies under the alternative name.
It is also reported she has been estranged from Tom, 64, since she was ten, while remaining close to Katie, 47, who is no longer a Scientologist.
Suri, an aspiring actor and drama student, is currently appearing in a re-imagined performance of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
And she seems to have inherited her father’s talent for acting, with critics saying the Carnegie Mellon uni student “stole the show”.
Journalist Tony Ortega, who has investigated the workings of Scientology for three decades, said of the family breakdown: “When Katie split with Tom, any normal Scientologist would be told she is an SP, a suppressive person — an enemy of the church.
“And Suri, being connected to Katie, would be considered a PTS — potential trouble source.
“Tom would be expected to disconnect from them and not have anything to do with them.”
The church says: “A suppressive person (SP) is a person who seeks to suppress other people in their vicinity.
“A suppressive person will goof up or vilify any effort to help anybody and particularly knife with violence anything calculated to make human beings more powerful or more intelligent.
“The suppressive person is also known as the antisocial personality.
“Within this category one finds Napoleon, Hitler, the unrepentant killer and the drug lord.
“But if such are easily spotted, if only from the bodies they leave in their wake, antisocial personalities also commonly exist in current life and often go undetected.”
Tom does seem to be in contact with his two other children, Isabella “Bella” Cruise, 33, and Connor Cruise, 31, who are both Scientologists.
Bella and Connor were adopted by Tom and Nicole in 1992 and 1995 respectively.
As youngsters, the pair divided their time between Sydney and Los Angeles, although they also lived in Hertfordshire for three years.
When their parents split up, the stars would initially spend their time between the children.
With dad Tom, they visited Scientology sessions at the church’s main hub in Clearwater, Florida, where followers spoke about attaining “spiritual freedom”.
In 2004, instead of seeing their mum, they were packed off to a Scientology summer camp.
The next year, they were living full-time with their dad.
In 2019, Bella told in a promotional email for Scientology how she was “drowning in problems” before training as an “auditor” — which is basically a counsellor who helps other believers shed “spiritual distress” using an “E-meter”.
The device is similar to a lie detector and delivers low-voltage electricity to the subject.
The email said: “This is what I had been searching for. The missing piece. Thank you to my dad for everything. We all need to do this. Wow. What an accomplishment. It’s hard work. It’s a lot of effort.
“It’s a few meltdowns and running to the bathroom to have a mini- episode, but it is worth everything because you will get through.
“This is a gift to yourself and so many others. It doesn’t matter if you aren’t going to be an auditor or aren’t going to join staff. If you are going to make it as a being for the long run, you need this.
“That’s the truth. So stop messing around and get going.”
However, despite her support of Scientology, Bella has not stayed living near her dad. Instead, she has switched the bright lights of Hollywood for the far less glitzy Croydon, South London.
She lives in an ordinary semi-detached house with her British husband, Max Parker, 34, an IT consultant she met through friends and married in 2015.
She works as an artist, selling trendy tote bags and T-shirts with her prints on, and posts Instagram pictures and videos of her artwork and trips to Brighton.
Previously, neighbours told The Sun: “I wouldn’t have known her if she’d come up and smacked me in the face. I don’t keep up with celebrity culture.
“They have a reptile of some kind — we can see the red light of the tank. That’s all anybody seems to know. She’s very mysterious.
“I don’t know why she’s chosen Croydon, poor child!”
Former Scientologist and US actress Leah Remini, 56, wrote a book about her time in the church called Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood And Scientology.
In it, she said she asked Bella if she saw her mum often and claims Bella replied: “Not if I have a choice. Our mom is a f***ing SP.”
Nicole, who left Scientology around the time of her divorce from Tom, has previously said: “I’ve chosen not to speak publicly about Scientology. I have two children who are Scientologists and I utterly respect their beliefs.”
She reiterated this in 2018, saying: “They are able to make their own decisions. They have made choices to be Scientologists, and as a mother it’s my job to love them.”
Bella does follow her half-sister, Sunday Rose, 18 — from Nicole’s marriage to country singer Keith Urban — on Instagram as well as both parents.
However, neither Nicole nor Keith attended Bella’s wedding reception in London, and it’s said she turned down her dad’s offer of a £324,000-a-month rented penthouse when she first moved to the UK capital.
Connor, understood to live near Clearwater, Florida, has been pictured with Tom at various sporting events.
A source told People magazine in 2019: “Connor has been able to remain close with Tom because of Scientology.”
On Instagram, he has shared pictures of him with his father, writing: “Watching the Yankees beat the Dodgers a couple years back with my dad.”
Scientology has two major centres in London, and its UK base is at the Grade II-listed Saint Hill Manor in East Grinstead, West Sussex.
And while Bella is in Croydon, it is unclear if she will travel north to Edinburgh to see her half-sister Suri, who is busy making a name for herself on stage.
