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Nicole Kidman Makes Rare, Heartbreaking Comments About Scientology and Her Children With Tom Cruise

By Michelle Ruiz

Nicole Kidman seldom speaks about her two grown children with Tom Cruise—Isabella, 25, and Connor, 23, both of whom decided to live with their father and, like Cruise, practice Scientology, after the couple split in 2001. But promoting her new film, Boy Erased , in which Kidman plays the mother of a gay son ( Lucas Hedges ), has predictably sparked questions and prompted Kidman to break her silence on Isabella and Connor.

“They are adults,” Kidman told Australia’s Who magazine . “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.”

In comments that would apply both to her role in the film and her own life, Kidman—who is also mom to two daughters, Sunday and Faith, with her husband, Keith Urban—went on to stress the importance of tolerance in mother-child relationships: “That’s what I believe—that no matter what your child does, the child has love, and the child has to know there is available love and I’m open here. I think that’s so important because if that is taken away from a child, to sever that in any child, in any relationship, in any family—I believe it’s wrong. So that’s our job as a parent, to always offer unconditional love.”

Her words are heartbreaking in the context of Kidman’s past statements about her children choosing to live with Cruise and to practice Scientology, which seems to have driven a wedge between them. (See the account from ex-Cruise friend and Scientology whistle-blower Leah Remini saying Isabella once referred to Kidman as a “fucking SP”—Scientology lingo for a “suppressive person” outside the religion.) Kidman told Who that she is very private about her eldest kids but is secure in the knowledge that being a mother is her “purpose”: “I know 150 percent that I would give up my life for my children.”

Are Tom Cruise And Nicole Kidman's Kids Involved In Scientology?

It's been a long time since Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman were Hollywood's golden couple. They met in 1989, shortly before they began filming "Days of Thunder," the movie that introduced Kidman to American audiences. They got married on Christmas Eve 1990, per PopSugar .

They adopted Isabella Jane (born in 1992) and Connor Antony (born in 1995). Then, suddenly in early February 2001, they separated. Two days later, Cruise filed for divorce. There's still some question as to why they divorced, as Kidman has made it clear that they were happy and in love in the months leading up to their separation, per  The New York Times .

Kidman went on to marry country superstar Keith Urban in June 2006 (per USA Today ) and welcome daughters Sunday Rose in 2008 and Faith Margaret in 2010. But what happened to her relationship with Isabella and Conor as they grew up? Cruise is one of the most high-profile Scientologists and there's a school of thought that the controversial religion is the reason for their split, per the Daily Beast .

Isabella and Connor chose to live with their father after the divorce, so are they involved in Scientology?

Nicole Kidman loves her kids unconditionally

In an interview with the Australian magazine Who in 2018, Nicole Kidman opened up about her now-grown children with Tom Cruise , saying, "... no matter what your child does, the child has love, and the child has to know there is available love and I'm open here. I think that's so important because if that is taken away from a child, to sever that in any child, in any relationship, in any family—I believe it's wrong. So that's our job as a parent, to always offer unconditional love."

In the same interview, Kidman said "They are adults. 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."

Former Scientologist and whistleblower Leah Remini has said that Kidman's daughter Isabella has called her mother "a f*cking S-P," per Slate . An S-P is a "suppressive person" who's not a Scientologist that Scientologists are not allowed to be around.

Isabella and Connor Cruise are practicing Scientologists like their father. As for Kidman, she said "I'm very private about all that. [her older children] I have to protect all those relationships. I know 150 percent that I would give up my life for my children because it's what my purpose is," per Who.

How Tom Cruise Got Us to Forget About His Scientology Ties

• By Jon Blistein

Jon Blistein

There are movie stars and then there is Tom Cruise . Forty years a star, enough classics to make listing even a few here pointless, and, now, someone who can stake a legitimate claim to saving Hollywood (or at least jolting some life into that lazy, bloated monstrosity). Last year’s Top Gun: Maverick , with its millions at the box office, helped rescue the movies and movie theaters from the brink of Covid-19 and streaming. This year’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One , the seventh and ostensibly penultimate installment of the secret agent series, should reach similar heights. Tom Cruise is as big as he’s ever been — a feat as staggering as any Ethan Hunt stunt. 

And yet, none of it’s ever really caught up with Cruise, let alone dragged him down. Even Alex Gibney, who directed the damning Scientology doc Going Clear (based on Lawrence Wright’s book of the same name), admitted to Rolling Stone recently that he was “surprised” Cruise had avoided any kind of reckoning.  

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It’s easy to let one’s imagination run wild with known unknowns (just ask Donald Rumsfeld — or don’t, actually); but the thing is, there’s already a lot we do know about Tom Cruise and Scientology. It’s not some nasty secret stashed away. It barely qualifies as dirty laundry at this point. We’ve had years of tell-alls, exposés, memoirs, documentaries, lawsuits, even one unforgettable episode of South Park . At the most recent Oscars and Golden Globes, where Top Gun: Maverick was fêted with multiple nominations (and even won an Academy Award for Best Sound), hosts Jimmy Kimmel and Jerrod Carmichael both joked about it . They weren’t even subtle or winking, like the kind of jokes 30 Rock made about Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein years before the full extent of their alleged transgressions were revealed. Carmichael flat-out said the three Golden Globes Cruise returned in protest of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association should be exchanged for Shelly Miscavige — David’s wife, who hasn’t been seen in public since 2007.

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Shockingly, this didn’t exactly endear Cruise or the Church to the culture at large. A 2008 incident is telling: Hackers obtained and leaked an internal Church video that featured Cruise, full Steve Jobs mode in a black turtleneck, extolling the virtues of Scientology; there was also footage of Cruise accepting the Church’s “Freedom Medal of Valor” and saluting Miscavige. In response , the Church not only tried to wipe the video from the web, but cast doubt on its authenticity, claiming it was “pirated and edited.” By the end of that year, Cruise was apologizing to Lauer for acting “arrogant” and declining to answer interviewer questions about Scientology. 

The first half of the 2010s saw more bad press with the release of Wright’s book and Gibney’s doc, as well as the high-profile defection of Leah Remini . Cruise even endured some self-inflicted wounds after filing a defamation suit against the tabloid Life & Style , which had run a story claiming Cruise had abandoned his daughter, Suri, with ex-wife Katie Holmes. In a 2013 deposition , he was forced to admit that Scientology had played a role in his divorce from Holmes, and that Holmes told him she wanted to protect their daughter from the Church. (The lawsuit ultimately settled out of court.) 

Action flicks have always been a core component of the Cruise oeuvre; but after a versatile first 20 years as an actor, his focus narrowed on them in the 2000s, and since then, that focus seems to have only hardened into a raison d’être . There’s little doubt Cruise loves these kinds of movies and the work that goes into not only doing the stunts, but building the characters and stories to make those set pieces worthwhile. But “Tom Cruise, Action Hero” is also an appealing prospect and PR win: If you’re an organization beset by controversy and accusation, why wouldn’t you want your poster boy constantly saving the world?

But action flicks have suited Cruise similarly well in this era of muted public association with Scientology. Amidst the ceaseless rise of green screen tech and CGI tricks, and the Marvel-ization of blockbuster cinema, Cruise remains one of the crazy, blessed few still willing to throw himself out of a plane in service of the noble causes of storytelling and entertainment. That willingness to fully embody Ethan Hunt or Pete “Maverick” Mitchell is a great way to make people not necessarily forget, but stop worrying so much about L. Ron Hubbard, or Xenu, or Shelly Miscavige. Or from wondering, when was the last time Tom Cruise saw his daughter? 

It certainly helped, too, that whenever Cruise went out to promote one of his new movies, he was never asked about any of that. Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation came out just a few months after Gibney’s Going Clear in 2015, and there’s nothing in the press cycle to suggest the doc was ever broached with Cruise on record. (One reporter got a very generic comment from Cruise the following year at the London premiere of Jack Reacher: Never Go Back , the actor calling Scientology a “beautiful religion” and “something that has helped me incredibly in my life.”) Instead, in these heavily moderated interviews and red carpet chats, he mostly talked about The Movies — his current movie, his next movie, his old movies, other people’s movies, and, maybe his favorite topic of all, the process of making movies.

Even at the height of his public association with Scientology, The Movies were like a kind of religion for Cruise. In 2002, when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences needed someone to validate the existence and value of film and the film industry after 9/11, it called on Cruise , and he delivered. You can see shades of it as far back as 1984 , two years before his introduction to Scientology, in the way he discusses movies as a vehicle for betterment and serenity: “I’m interested in my personal growth, what’s going to make me happy. Not how much money am I gonna make, not what film is gonna really make me more visible.”

But without the pandemic, Cruise’s embrace of The Movies as his public-facing religion may not have reached such a full expression. What he says about The Movies hasn’t really changed that much, but now it’s shot through with the aura of the savior. With that irrepressible conviction and charisma, he has that preacher’s ability to turn repeated platitudes into mantras or prayers. (Seriously, his reliance on the bit about how, ever since he was four he wanted nothing more than to make movies and travel the world , has arguably surpassed Lady Gaga/ 100-people-in-a-room levels of ridiculousness — and yet it’s still kinda charming). And what other way is there to look at Cruise’s stunt work than the fearless devotions of a man willing to martyr himself for the thing he loves?

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As for the rest of us, we seem to have reached a cordial stalemate with Cruise. We’ve delayed his reckoning — maybe forever, maybe only for now — allowed him to float above the level of a Mark Wahlberg, or worse, a Mel Gibson. And that’s because, as much as Tom Cruise, Action Hero and Savior of the Movies is good PR, it’s also who he is, who he’s always been. Despite everything else he believes, he still believes in The Movies.

There’s a famous tidbit about how Thomas Cruise Mapother IV spent a year in seminary school as a teenager before he started acting. Tom Cruise has always insisted Thomas Mapother was never actually close to becoming a priest, but the episode still encapsulates the zealous streak in his character, an irrepressible yearning for knowledge and understanding, his belief in, or need for, a higher calling or power. And before he found an outlet for all that in Scientology, he found it in acting and making movies. It’s still there. The proof is everywhere, even when he’s just looking a camera dead in the eye, smiling, and saying , “I love my popcorn. Movies, popcorn.” 

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Tom and Son Connor Cruise Likely in London to Attend Scientology Event Together: Source

Connor Cruise and Tom Cruise's shared commitment to Scientology has made their bond strong over the years

Writer-Reporter, PEOPLE

Tom Cruise and his son, Connor , likely attended a major Scientology event together after they were photographed together in London .

“Tom and Connor stepping out together in London was a big deal,” a source tells PEOPLE. “It was the same weekend that Scientology does their annual gathering called the International Association of Scientologists (ASI).”

The event is one that “Tom has attended numerous times in the past,” says the insider.

“This appears to be the first time Connor has gone,” the source adds.

On Saturday, the 57-year-old actor and his son were spotted heading to a private helicopter in London. Once inside the vehicle, Tom — who learned how to fly a helicopter for his role in the Mission: Impossible franchise — was seen showing Connor, 24, some aviation basics.

Connor was adopted by Tom and Nicole Kidman , 52, during their marriage, along with their daughter Isabella (Bella) , 26. The actor also shares 13-year-old daughter Suri with ex-wife Katie Holmes .

“Connor and Isabella grew up in the church of Scientology, they’ve been members since they were kids,” the source tells PEOPLE, adding the siblings “are completely dedicated Scientologists just like Tom.”

Connor and Tom’s shared commitment to Scientology has made their bond strong over the years.

“Connor has been able to remain close with Tom because of Scientology,” the source adds.

A source previously told PEOPLE that “Connor has a pretty simple life” in Clearwater, Florida.

“He lives in his own home in a Scientology community. His life is deep-sea fishing. He has a lot of friends and seems very well-liked.”

Connor’s sister, a fashion designer who goes by the name Bella, lives in London with her husband Max Parker , whom she married in 2015.

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Tom Cruise's former Scientology auditor speaks about Cruise/Kidman divorce

By Anna Schecter

Rock Center

Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise's settlement is now final and neither of them has publicly addressed reports that the Church of Scientology-and the future role of Scientology in their daughter Suri’s life-was a cause of the split.

One former Church of Scientology official is speaking out about what he said he witnessed at the time of Cruise’s 2001 divorce from actress Nicole Kidman.

Marty Rathbun, who worked at the church for 27 years before leaving in 2004, said that he believes church officials used Scientology doctrine to turn Kidman’s children against her.

“It was more than implied….[Kidman] was somebody that they shouldn't open up with, they shouldn't communicate with, and they shouldn't spend much time with,” said Rathbun in an interview airing Thursday, July 17 at 10pm/9c on NBC's Rock Center with Brian Williams.

Rathbun said he spent countless hours working with Cruise at the church’s celebrity center in California starting in late 2001.  He said he was conducting counseling sessions with Cruise that the church calls "auditing.”

“[Cruise] and I were intensively at it, you know, auditing several hours a day over several months,” he said.

When Cruise’s children were with their father at the church, they were often in the hands of the Church of Scientology staff, according to Rathbun.

“And they were being indoctrinated, and they were reporting to Tom on how that was going in my presence,” Rathbun said.

Rathbun claims church officials suggested to Cruise and Kidman’s children, then six and nine years old, that their mother was a “suppressive person,” which the church’s website, Scientology.org , defines as “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 " anti-social personality." Within this category one finds Napoleon, Hitler, the unrepentant killer and the drug lord,” according to the official Church of Scientology's website, Scientology.org .

Rathbun said the Church of Scientology closely monitors the communication of high profile members and orders members to sever ties with suppressive people, particularly those who are critical of the church.

“That person could be your son, it could be your daughter, it could be your father, it could be your mother.  It doesn't matter,” Rathbun said.

Rathbun said these policies came into play with regards to Kidman’s children, Conner and Isabella.  “They were being steered toward and indoctrinated toward coming to the conclusion that Nicole was a suppressive person,” he said.

The Church of Scientology has denied that any such conversations with Kidman’s children took place. It has said that it has no policy that requires members to sever ties with relatives who do not believe in the religion. On the church's website, Scientology.org , it says that, "A Scientologist can have trouble making spiritual progress in his auditing or training if he is connected to someone who is suppressive...[and] as a last resort, when all attempts to handle have failed, one 'disconnects' from or stops communicating with the person."

The church declined to comment on the divorce of Cruise and Holmes, saying it would be “inappropriate.”

Kidman’s publicist did not respond to requests for comment on this story.  A representative for Cruise told Rock Center that Rathbun is not a reliable source.

"He is a bitter ex-Scientologist who spends most of his time attacking Scientology and using Tom Cruise's name to get attention for his bigoted diatribe. If he "audited" Mr. Cruise, he is violating the privilege of that position by discussing it," said Bert Fields, Cruise's representative.

Of the Church of Scientology's role in influencing Kidman and Cruise's children, Fields said, "It is absolutely false that Mr. Cruise, or anyone else to his knowledge, did or said anything to lessen Connor and Bella's communication or relationship with their mother.  On the contrary, Mr. Cruise did all he could to encourage that relationship."

In a letter to NBC News, Gary Soter, an attorney for the Church of Scientology, wrote that Rathbun is an unreliable source and a liar.  Soter described Rathbun as “a defrocked ex-communicated apostate.”

Soter wrote that Rathbun is a self-promoter who is “shamelessly” exploiting a tragic personal matter to forward his own anti-Scientology agenda and to profit from it.

Scientology’s online publication FreedomMag.org contains numerous allegations against Rathbun, including charges of violent and psychotic behavior.

Rathbun admits to violent behavior against other members of the church while still a member himself, but says it was part of the culture within the church, which the church denies.  

One of the posts on FreedomMag.org asserts that church officials ultimately fired Rathbun from the church for bad behavior and had to “clean up his mess.”

When asked about the allegations against him, Rathbun replied, “Then why was I assigned by the Chairman of the Board to audit Tom Cruise during the last four years of my involvement at the Church of Scientology?”

Karen Russo contributed to this report.

Editor's Note: Kate Snow's full report airs Thursday, July 12 at 10pm/9c on NBC's Rock Center with Brian Williams.

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The hollowness of Tom Cruise

How Tom Cruise went from superstar to laughingstock and back again.

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Tom Cruise has spent this year flying high, literally.

At CinemaCon in April, when Mission: Impossible 7 screened its first trailer for theater owners, Cruise sent along a video intro that he’d filmed while standing on top of a biplane flying over a canyon in South Africa. It ended with him launching into a barrel roll. When he arrived at the premiere of Top Gun: Maverick in San Diego in May, he flew there in a helicopter he piloted himself , emblazoned with his own name and the title of his film.

He’s also flying high on a metaphorical level. Cruise turned 60 on July 3, and he shows no signs of slowing down. Top Gun: Maverick has made over $1 billion since it came out in May , the first film of Cruise’s career to do so and just the second film to manage the feat since the pandemic began in 2020. (The first was Spider-Man: No Way Home .)

In the pandemic era, a lot of movies are making only the most cursory appearance in theaters before they hit streaming, if they make it to theaters at all. Not Tom Cruise movies. The idea of Top Gun: Maverick premiering on streaming instead of in theaters? “Never going to happen,” Cruise said at Cannes in May , even though the completed film languished for two years before seeing the light of day. When Paramount told Cruise that Mission: Impossible 7 would play in theaters for only 45 days instead of the three months Cruise was used to, Cruise hired a lawyer .

For his efforts, Cruise is being hailed as the savior of the cinematic experience.

“Can Tom Cruise save the old-fashioned blockbuster?” asked the Telegraph .

Empire magazine described Cruise’s fight as “the battle to save cinema,” with “the biggest movie star in the world” at the vanguard.

“Cruise is here to remind us that the industry will not die on his watch. Not if he can help it,” said the LA Times . “And honestly, who among us won’t be thrilled if Cruise triumphs in life as in the movies?”

It seems clear that Cruise sincerely sees himself as the savior of the big screen, and all the jobs that depend on it. (Or at the very least, he sees himself as the savior of Tom Cruise movies appearing on the big screen.) During the pandemic, he told audiences at Cannes, he called up theater owners to say , “Please, I know what you’re going through. Just know we are making Mission: Impossible , and Top Gun is coming out.” In December 2020, leaked audio footage from the set of Mission: Impossible 7 showed Cruise upbraiding crew members who violated Covid social distancing policies.

“They’re back there in Hollywood making movies right now because of us,” Cruise can be heard to shout on the footage . “Because they believe in us and what we’re doing. I’m on the phone with every fucking studio at night, insurance companies, producers, and they’re looking at us and using us to make their movies. We are creating thousands of jobs, you motherfuckers.”

“That’s what I sleep with every night,” Cruise concluded: “the future of this fucking industry!”

By now we should know: Tom Cruise is the hero of a movie that never ends. It’s one where he always, always saves the day.

That wasn’t always the case. Cruise’s stock plummeted in the 2000s after Oprah’s couch and Brooke Shields’ antidepressants . Yet today, Cruise is once again considered a bankable and iconic star. He is no longer a publicity liability for a movie studio.

There’s only one thing that Cruise might not be able to save. That’s the nagging, persistent sense that if the movie were ever to stop, when the lights came up, there would be nothing left of Tom Cruise at all.

“Cruise’s own laugh,” concluded Alex Pappademas in the New Yorker this May, “is the best Tom Cruise impression you’ve ever heard.”

But who says the movie ever has to stop?

Tom Cruise saves chivalry

“I like treating a woman the way that she deserves to be treated.” Tom Cruise to Oprah Winfrey, 2005 .

Here’s an oddity in the latest spree of killer Tom Cruise publicity: For once, the press is really into the way he’s interacting with women.

Over the course of his Top Gun press tour, Tom Cruise has been handed one positive headline after another for his chivalrous habit of taking charge of all ladies present, from Kate Middleton to his co-stars. If there is a woman in the same space as he is, Cruise will escort her up and down stairs and through doorways, present her to the camera, and make sure she is taken care of. It makes for incredible press. In her coverage of Cannes, gossip maven Elaine Lui remarked on how carefully Cruise looked after Top Gun co-star Jennifer Connelly. “I’m told he was never not attentive,” Lui wrote , “always focused on making sure she was looked after, never not ready with a hand to guide her from one place to another, never missing an opportunity to talk about how spectacular she looked, seemingly enthralled by her so that the cameras would pick up on his eyeline and transfer their focus to her.”

This display of “chivalry,” Lui concluded, was “very Tom Cruise.”

Chivalry is part of the old-fashioned action-hero masculinity Tom Cruise has long represented: the hero with the square jaw and faultless manners, kind and attentive to everyone around him. It’s also been central to Tom Cruise’s personal mythology for a long time, in both good ways and bad.

On the good side, Cruise used to be in the press on a regular basis for rescuing regular people: saving a family from a burning sailboat; getting the victim of a hit-and-run to the hospital and then paying her medical bills. Every actor who’s ever worked with him seems to have a Tom Cruise story about him making them some impossibly thoughtful gesture or gift .

On the bad side, quoth Elaine Lui , “Remember how he used to ‘present’ Katie Holmes?”

Cruise’s 2005 marriage to Katie Holmes was marked by its public displays of affection. Cruise was constantly presenting Holmes to the camera, cuddling up to her in public, proclaiming his love for her in ever more enthusiastic ways. Even before he jumped up and down on Oprah’s couch and sent his career into a precipitous downslide, he told Oprah that he covered a hotel room in rose petals for Holmes, and that he took her on a motorcycle ride on the beach.

“I’m a romantic, okay?” Cruise said at the time. “I like treating a woman the way that she deserves to be treated.”

Romantic or not, that marriage also represented a low point in Cruise’s professional life. In the wake of his couch moment with Oprah, Cruise’s popularity plummeted, his reputation took a hit, and he almost lost the Mission: Impossible franchise.

Then came the enormous and damaging wave of publicity in 2012, when Katie Holmes divorced Cruise. Stories rolled out by the day: that Holmes had planned the divorce for two years in order to make sure she would retain custody of the couple’s daughter, Suri; that she had to orchestrate the whole thing with burner phones and secret laptops and lawyers in multiple states ; that she had done it all — developed this whole two-year master plan — because that was how badly she wanted full custody of Suri . Specifically, the story went, Holmes wanted to save Suri from Scientology.

Cruise has since worked diligently to move past the so-called TomKat years. He’s been so effective that all his gentlemanly gestures on his current press tour tend to read as charming, not creepy. But there’s a clear and strong connection between Cruise’s love of chivalry then and his love of chivalry now. They are part and parcel of what appears to be a driving force behind Tom Cruise’s quest to be a hero, win the girl, and save the world: Scientology.

Tom Cruise saves mankind (from thetans)

“That’s what drives me: is that I know we have an opportunity to really help, for the first time, effectively change people’s lives. And I am dedicated to that. I am absolutely, uncompromisingly dedicated to that.” Tom Cruise, Scientology recruitment video, 2004 .

The controversial Church of Scientology, founded by the science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard in 1953, appeals to the sort of worldview Cruise embodies. The world is under attack from evil forces, Scientology teaches, and all that stops them is one good man who’s not going to let petty rules get in his way.

Scientology is also, despite the number of celebrities it boasts among its ranks, a publicity liability. It’s widely suspected of being a pyramid scheme at best and at worse alleged to be an abusive cult profiting from forced labor and human trafficking , according to lawsuits and reports from former members. Its central cosmology, which teaches that human beings are plagued by immortal alien souls called thetans brought to Earth by the galactic emperor Xenu billions of years ago, is ripe for mockery.

The reporting that exists on Cruise’s connection to the church is both lengthy and damning. In September 2012, Vanity Fair published an exposé by Maureen Orth on the way Cruise outsourced management of his romantic life to the church. Tony Ortega, the closest thing there is to a beat reporter on Scientology, has a dedicated Tom Cruise tab on his website. In 2013, celebrated New Yorker reporter Lawrence Wright expanded his existing Scientology reporting into the book Going Clear , which prominently delved into Cruise’s status in the church. In 2015, Going Clear was adapted into an Emmy-winning HBO documentary by the director Alex Gibney, again featuring plenty of Cruise stories. The story they told is dramatic, and it plays heavily on Cruise’s apparent understanding of himself as a savior figure. (The Church of Scientology has strongly denied all these accounts , describing them as lies from disgruntled former members and journalists with grudges.)

Cruise joined the Church of Scientology during his first marriage to Scientologist Mimi Rogers, after Top Gun had already made him a star. According to now-defected former church officials, allegedly he began to drift away from active practice during the ’90s and his marriage to Nicole Kidman, only to drift back as that marriage foundered in the late ’90s. The clincher came, those former Scientologists say in Going Clear , when Cruise said he wanted to tap Kidman’s phone , and the Church of Scientology obliged.

Keeping Cruise happy apparently became a priority for the Church of Scientology. When Cruise needed a new love interest, the church reportedly recruited a young member for the job , gave her a makeover to Cruise’s specifications, and then broke up with her for him after he tired of her. When the woman told a friend what had happened to her, the church reportedly sentenced her to months of menial labor in punishment.

Around the same time that Cruise was making his grand return to the church, he fired his longtime Hollywood publicist, allegedly because she told him to stop talking about Scientology so much when he was on the publicity trail for The Last Samurai . He brought on his Scientologist sister to manage his image instead.

As Cruise was becoming more and more committed to the church, the tabloid industry was beginning to go rabid . By 2004, Us Weekly had gone from monthly trade magazine to weekly gossip rag, pitting itself against People magazine. In Touch Weekly, Life & Style Weekly, and OK! had all emerged. These magazines thrived on an endless diet of outrageous celebrity soundbites, and as Tom Cruise made the publicity rounds for The War of the Worlds , he kept offering them up, one after another.

“Some people, well, if they don’t like Scientology, well, then, fuck you,” he told Rolling Stone . “Really. Fuck you. Period.”

Citing Scientology’s distrust of psychiatry, Cruise criticized Brooke Shields for taking antidepressants to treat her postpartum depression, and then told Matt Lauer he was being “glib” when Lauer suggested he might have overstepped his bounds.

Cruise’s public behavior became more and more erratic. On the same War of the Worlds publicity tour, Cruise infamously jumped up and down on Oprah’s couch, enthusiastically declaring his love for Katie Holmes.

Holmes seemed to be getting caught up in the Scientology swirl herself. A W magazine profile of Holmes saw her conduct an interview with a “Scientology chaperone,” who prompted Holmes with phrases about how much she adored Cruise when she seemed to fumble for words.

The spree of outré quotes took their toll. In 2006, one report found that between the spring and summer of 2005, Cruise fell from 11th most-liked celebrity in the US to 197th .

Fox News predicted the end of Cruise’s career. “It will be all but impossible now for a new generation of film fans to see past his erratic public behavior, the Oprah couch shenanigans, the decrying of psychiatry and now the rejection of Catholicism for a religion invented by a science-fiction writer,” they opined .

Cruise, seeing the writing on the wall, veered away from talking about his religion during his movie publicity tours. But for the next 10 years, Scientology would continue to haunt his public image.

In 2008, a video leaked to the press that was reportedly a Scientology conversion effort, filmed in 2004 . It featured Cruise glassy-eyed and grinning in a black turtleneck, talking about all the ways Scientology has changed his life. “Being a Scientologist, when you drive past an accident, it’s not like anybody else,” he explains. “You know you have to do something about it.”

“Let me put it this way,” said Gawker, which broke the news of the video : “if Tom Cruise jumping on Oprah’s couch was an 8 on the scale of scary, this is a 10.”

In 2012, the Cruise-Holmes divorce cracked open the door of Tom Cruise Scientology stories. A host more came pouring out — and not just in the tabloids, but in legacy print magazines and prestige cable shows: Vanity Fair, the New Yorker, the Village Voice, HBO.

According to former Scientology officials, the Church has continued to manage Cruise’s life. Reportedly, it’s granted him the full benefits of its more unsavory enterprises, including the Church’s alleged use of slave labor .

Former Scientologist John Brousseau says the church has custom-built luxury vehicles and sound systems for Cruise and provides the staff who manage his many homes. Because this labor is provided by the Church, it’s done through Sea Org, the Scientologist association that’s been accused of human trafficking and forced labor . ( The Church has described these claims as “both scurrilous and ridiculous.”) According to Ortega , Sea Org members who worked on Cruise’s property “were paid only about $50 a week by the church, even though their hours could reach 100 a week.” Cruise has a net worth estimated at $600 million .

The picture painted of Cruise by former members of the church is not flattering. They tend to describe Cruise as a well-meaning man who, fundamentally, is not curious, and who is happy to have beautiful things handed to him without looking at their cost. Scientology is attractive to Cruise, in this account, because it makes his life easier while simultaneously flattering his ego with the belief that he is a hero.

But as damning as those stories are, they have largely faded out of public memory. In the 10 years since his divorce from Katie Holmes, Tom Cruise has been working hard to change the narrative.

Can Tom Cruise save Tom Cruise?

“People can create their own lives. … I decided that I’m going to create, for myself, who I am, not what other people say I should be. I’m entitled to that.” Parade, 2006 .

Cruise is currently experiencing a late-career renaissance. Cannes Film Festival feted him in May , awarding him an honorary Palme d’Or and marking the occasion with a red carpet air show. The press loves him again. Top Gun: Maverick is a major success, and the next slew of Mission: Impossible films are bound to be as well.

He’s even rumored to have a new girlfriend. If, as the tabloids claim, Cruise actually is (or was) dating his Mission: Impossible co-star Hayley Atwell , she would be his first public girlfriend since his divorce from Holmes 10 years ago.

So did he do it? How did Tom Cruise go from America’s 197th favorite celebrity to a bankable superstar once again?

The answer seems to be deceptively simple: He kept working, and he stopped talking — about Scientology, and about almost everything else too.

Cruise’s PR nadir came during a period of oversharing. Since then, he’s become known for his intense desire for privacy. “When was the last time paparazzi captured Tom Cruise on the street or anywhere but a film set or premiere?” wondered the New York Post in May 2022 . He heavily restricts the questions journalists are allowed to ask him before he agrees to an interview, and both his religion and his family life tend to be off-limits.

Meanwhile, Cruise has kept making movies. Tropic Thunder in 2008 and Rock of Ages in 2012 together proved he had a sense of humor. Edge of Tomorrow in 2014, which saw Cruise ceding much of the spotlight to co-star Emily Blunt, proved he knew how to share the screen with another star. And the Mission: Impossible franchise has churned out hit after reliable hit. “I can attest that I am alarmed at the extent to which I suddenly love Tom Cruise,” admitted GQ entertainment editor Ashley Fetters in 2015 , as Cruise publicized Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation .

Cruise has also benefited from the current cultural shame surrounding the tabloid culture of the 2000s. As the world agrees that tabloid targets like Britney Spears were hard done by in the heady, tacky days of Y2K, everything from the era has been painted with the same shade of remorse. Vilifying Tom Cruise for jumping on Oprah’s couch can feel like the same toxic impulse that led to a decade of mocking Spears for having her mental breakdown in public, even though what Cruise has been accused of abetting within the Church of Scientology is far worse than anything Spears has ever been accused of.

In most ways, this strategy has been successful. The tabloid spectacle of Tom Cruise, Scientologist has been covered over by four decades of hard work from Tom Cruise, one of the last great movie stars .

But it’s not clear that Cruise can ever again reach the heights of public adoration he enjoyed in 2003. There’s a persistent strangeness around Tom Cruise’s image that has never quite resolved itself, a sort of falseness that he’s never been entirely able to weed out. It’s a falseness that’s rooted not in his Scientology but in his movie star core. From the beginning, the world has refused to believe Tom Cruise when he breaks out his giant movie star smile. It especially refuses to believe him when he laughs.

In an early pan of 1983’s Risky Business , Cruise’s breakout film, New York magazine took aim at the young star’s mannerisms. “Cruise has a slight, undeveloped voice and a nervous smile, which he relies on whenever the script reveals one of its innumerable holes,” the review ran .

In HBO’s Going Clear , footage of Tom Cruise laughing in his Scientology recruitment video plays while one ex-Scientologist declares, “Scientologists are all full of shit.”

A 2004 Rolling Stone profile devoted paragraph after paragraph to the oddness of “the famous Tom Cruise laugh.”

“It comes on just fine, a regular laugh by any standards. You will be laughing too,” wrote Neil Strauss . “But then, when the humor subsides, you will stop laughing. At this point, however, Cruise’s laugh will just be crescendoing. And he will be making eye contact with you.”

It’s as though there’s a hollowness at the center of Cruise’s image, some sort of vacancy that he is forever restlessly seeking to fill. As though if he can only save enough people, enough industries, enough worlds — maybe then, at last, he can finally be whole. But can anyone, even Tom Cruise, do that much saving?

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Where Is Connor Cruise Now? Updates on Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman’s Son Today

• Oops! Something went wrong. Please try again later. More content below

Fans of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman watched their adopted son, Connor , grow up, but wonder where he is today after he made a surprising career change while living a low-key life away from the spotlight.

Where Is Connor Cruise Now?

As of March 2024, he was still sharing grilling tips on his Instagram page, Connor's Meat Shack . It's believed he still lives in the Clearwater, Florida, area, where the Church of Scientology owns numerous properties, as he is a lifetime member.

When Did Connor Cruise Last Appear in Public?

Connor was last photographed in public in July 2023 in New York City, accompanying his dad to a promotion event for his film Mission: Impossible ​– Dead Reckoning Part One , although he did not pose on any red carpet and stayed behind the scenes.

The former DJ made a rare red carpet appearance on his own in February 2023, when he attended the Diesel fashion show during Milan Fashion Week.

Connor hasn't shared any personal Instagram photos featuring himself since April 2023, where he appeared with a friend in a snapshot showing them on the links at the Pelican Golf Club in Belleair, Florida.

What Does Connor Cruise Do for a Living?

Connor became a barbeque food influencer in March 2021, when he launched Connor's Meat Shack. He shared a video on how to make smash burgers and followed it up with roasted chicken on a spit, Wagyu brisket, ribeye and other meats on a grill.

His page shared numerous photos and videos until January 2022, when after that he appeared to take an extended break. Connor returned with a post on March 6, 2024, showing a photo a barbequed ribs with the caption, "We are still cooking!! Just some fun with the smoker."

What Are Connor Cruise's Previous Jobs?

After taking an interest in deep sea sport fishing, Connor appeared in numerous Instagram photos starting in 2017 on fishing trips in the Gulf of Mexico, Costa Rica and other locales while showing off his prized catches.

Connor's passion for sport fishing continued through at least 2022, which was the last time he showed off one of his biggest hauls, displaying a massive grouper.

The music lover's first major career was as a DJ, which he started doing at the age of 16 in 2011. Connor got some impressive gigs over the years, including San Francisco's The Temple and afterparties for such events as the Terranea’s Celebration of Food & Wine in 2016.

When Did Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman Adopt Son Connor Cruise?

The former couple married on December 24, 1990. Two years later they started their family by adopting daughter Isabella shortly after her birth. Connor was adopted by the pair in January 1995.

Tom filed for divorce in February 2001, citing irreconcilable differences. He listed his date of separation from Nicole as December 21, 2000, three days before their 10th wedding anniversary. The former Hollywood power couple's divorce was finalized in August 2001.

Is Connor Cruise Close With His Father Tom Cruise?

Yes. In addition to supporting his dad's movies, Connor and Tom were seen in rare photos in the stands of game 2 of the National League Division Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Francisco Giants in October 2021.

“Connor and Isabella grew up in the church of Scientology, they’ve been members since they were kids,” a source told People in October 2019, adding the siblings “are completely dedicated scientologists just like Tom.”

“Connor has been able to remain close with Tom because of Scientology,” the insider added.

Is Connor Cruise Close to His Mother Nicole Kidman?

Connor was rarely seen with his mom after his parents' divorce. Nicole opened up in 2018 about how her not being a member of the Church of Scientology seemingly put a strain on her relationship with her adoptive kids, although she loved them unconditionally.

“I’m very private about all that. I have to protect all those relationships. I know 150 percent that I would give up my life for my children because it’s what my purpose is," the Big Little Lies star told Who magazine.

“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,” she continued. "And I am an example of that tolerance and that’s what I believe – that no matter what your child does, the child has love and the child has to know there is available love, and I’m open here."

"I think that’s so important because if that is taken away from a child, to sever that in any child, in any relationship, in any family – I believe it’s wrong. So that’s our job as a parent, to always offer unconditional love," Nicole added.

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Inside Tom Cruise's bond with his 'extremely loyal' son: Connor, 29, lives in a Scientology community in Florida where he fishes and runs a meat shack - and is the only one of the star's 3 children who's openly close to his father

• Connor, who married in 2019, lives in Clearwater where he has a low-key life
• READ MORE:  Nicole Kidman's hidden heartbreak: Actress insists she has 'unconditional love for Bella, 31, and Connor, 29, who she adopted with Tom Cruise 

By Jessica Taylor For Mailonline

Published: 03:26 EDT, 4 May 2024 | Updated: 08:27 EDT, 6 May 2024

View comments

As Tom Cruise 's career goes from strengh to strength and he cements his legacy as one of the most successful actors of all time, he can always count on the unending support of one particular family member.

Connor Cruise, the son he adopted during his marriage to Nicole Kidman in the 1990s, is now 29-years-old and said to be 'incredibly loyal' to his father.

Last year, as the Mission Impossible star promoted the newest film in the franchise in New York City , he was accompanied by Connor, as well as his sister Lee Ann. He 

Connor, who is now based in Florida , appears to spend much time with his father and was said to have chosen to live with Tom following his divorce from Nicole in 2001. He and his sister, Isabella, 31, were raised in the controversial Church of Scientology , in which Nicole had no part after the split.

As Connor and Bella maintain a close relationship with Tom, it is thought there's a rift between the siblings and their mother as they have not been seen in public with Kidman since 2007. 

Connor has recently launched an Instagram account for his meat cookery, where he smokes, fries and braises meat

And overall, the children live relatively low-key lives - but Connor in particular is seen with his father frequently, supporting him on promotional tours all around the world.

Connor appears to be a private person who lives in Clearwater, Florida, in a home within a Scientology community.

A source previously told PEOPLE magazine he lives a 'simple' existence, saying: 'He lives in his own home in a Scientology community. His life is deep-sea fishing. He has a lot of friends and seems very well-liked.' 

Connor seems to be very passionate about deep sea fishing and often posts photos on his Instagram account proudly holding up his catch of the day on boats.

Connor, who is now based in Clearwater, Florida, loves deep sea fishing and often shows off his catches of the day on Instagram

Connor and his father Tom remain incredibly close and, despite Connor living a humble life in Florida, the pair spend time together watching sports and touring the world

In 2016, Connor told PEOPLE he and his parents went fishing frequently when he was growing up.

He said: 'I was blessed to travel the world as a young kid and now I'm traveling the world working.'

Among Connor's other hobbies are golf, and he appears to enjoy days out on the course with his friends, according to his Instagram profile.

Although the 29-year-old's main interests appear to tie in with his life in a seaside town in Florida as he makes the most of the natural resources around him, he also shares his appreciation for resources from the land.

In 2021 he started an Instagram profile, Connor's Meat Shack, in which he shows off tender, slow-cooked joints of meat that he has cooked.

Connor is said to be 'extremely loyal' to his father Tom, with whom he chose to live following his parents' divorce

Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman adopted their children Connor and Isabella in the early 1990s

According to the Instagram bio on the account, Connor dabbles in 'wagyu, brisket, burgers, chicken, and ribs on chars, flats and smokers'.

For more than two years between 2022 and 2024, Connor didn't post on the account - however he shared a photo of racks of BBQ ribs eight weeks ago and insisted: 'We are still cooking!!' 

When looking at Connor's modest lifestyle in Florida, one could be forgiven for forgetting he is the son of one of the most famous men in the world.

However he remains incredibly close to his father Tom and has been spotted in public with the Hollywood titan as recently as last summer.

In July 2023 Connor was spotted alongside his aunt, Tom Cruise's sister Lee Ann, as they supported him in New York during the promotional tour for the latest Mission Impossible film.

Connor and his father were photographed separately in the city as they headed to an AMC theatre.

Connor dressed casually in a grey T-shirt and light blue trousers as he stepped out in the city with Tom's older sister Lee Ann Mapother, 63. 

Lee walked beside Connor and looked bright in a pink top and white jeans. 

Elsewhere, the 29-year-old remains close to his sister Bella, who is now 31 and lives in London with her IT manager husband.

He often posts childhood snaps of himself and Bella on Instagram - once describing their relationship as 'Day One homies'.

As for his relationship with his mother Nicole Kidman, Connor appears not to interact with his mother in public and does not follow her on Instagram. 

It has previously been reported that, although Kidman and Cruise were awarded joint custody of the children in their divorce settlement, Connor and Bella eventually chose to live with their father and remain members of Scientology.

Last weekend, Nicole Kidman, now 56, was awarded a prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute - and paid tributes to the 'loves of her life'; her husband Keith Urban and daughters, Sunday and Faith, in her speech.

However, her eldest children did not attend the ceremony in Hollywood's Dolby Theatre.

While Bella liked an Instagram post from her mother about the gong, Connor did not publicly acknowledge his mother's accolade. 

Despite a reported rift between Nicole and her eldest children - something Connor and Bella deny - the actress has previously spoken of her 'unconditional' love for Connor and Bella, in light of their 'choices to be Scientologists'. 

It has been suggested that the church of Scientology may be the reason for the distance between Nicole and her older children.

In her book Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology, ex-Scientology member Leah Remini claimed that Nicole was labelled a 'suppressive person' or 'SP' by the church after leaving.

Ron Miscavige, the father of Scientology leader David, who himself renounced the religion, previously told DailyMail.com that there is a 'toxic' policy of 'disconnection' operating within the church. 

When Connor married his Italian wife Silvia Zanchi in a Scientology ceremony in 2019, his mother was notably absent from the occasion.

It was reported at the time that Cruise had prohibited his son from inviting Nicole to the occasion because of her status as a 'suppressive person'.

At the time, an insider told Radar: 'First, Tom would never even consider inviting Nicole to Connor's wedding because she's considered a 'suppressive person' by the church — and, second, he doesn't want her there.'

However, Connor has previously insisted any suggestion of a rift between himself and his mother is untrue.

In 2014, he said: 'I don't care what people say. I know that me and mum are solid. I love her a lot. My family means everything.'

• Nicole Kidman's 4 Children: All About Bella, Connor, Sunday and Faith

Share or comment on this article: Inside Tom Cruise's bond with his 'extremely loyal' son: Connor, 29, lives in a Scientology community in Florida where he fishes and runs a meat shack - and is the only one of the star's 3 children who's openly close to his father

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The Big Question: What is Scientology, and why have Tom Cruise's claims for it rebounded?

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Why are we asking this now?

Millions of people around the world, it is said, have this week watched a nine-minute video of the Hollywood actor Tom Cruise enthusing wildly about his faith in Scientology. Cruise and his co-believers keep lobbying internet bosses to remove it, but as fast as it goes down it is gleefully uploaded by one user after another. Cruise doesn't like it because it is a collection of incomprehensible snippets spliced together to make him and Scientology look wacky.

So what exactly is Scientology?

That's complicated. It starts out as a mental health/self-improvement technique. You begin with a "free stress test" on the high street, which diagnosed me as unstable, depressed, nervous, irresponsible, self-critical and withdrawn. If you take the bait, you are then offered a session of "auditing" in which a Scientology "E-meter" (which a US judged once described as "of no proven usefulness") reveals to your Scientology counsellor just how bad you are. A system of intensive, and expensive, counselling called Dianetics will then purge you of "engrams" – undesirable thought patterns resulting from misdeeds in past lives. The higher up the auditing levels you progress the closer you get to the state that the Supreme Being intended.

Does it work?

Lots of people think so. Various Hollywood celebrities have told interviewers how it gave them an important set of life skills or improved their marriage. On the other hand, those for whom it has gone terribly wrong have ended up in courts where judges have said of Scientology that it is "corrupt, sinister and dangerous" or that it is a "schizophrenic, bizarre, paranoid... organisation that harasses its enemies and abuses the trust of its members". Even so it claims to be the world's fastest growing religion.

How many people are Scientologists?

Like everything to do with Scientology that's controversial. Last year it claimed 3.5 million members in the United States alone but independent sociologists said the true number was more like 55,000 people. There may be 100,000 worldwide.

In what way is it a 'sci-fi religion'?

It was founded in the 1950s by a former science fiction writer, L Ron Hubbard. The belief was that human souls were the ghostly remnants of aliens known as Thetans who had been brought to the Earth millions of years ago by a cruel Galactic despot named Xenu and his evil minions (who lived on as Christian clergy and psychiatrists). Scientologists today claim this is a wilful misreading of a metaphorical understanding of the human soul as an immortal spiritual being (termed a Thetan) which has lived through many past lives and continues after death.

Auditing, Hubbard claims, can allow individuals to reach through to this pure state and become an "Operating Thetan" as native spiritual abilities are recovered. Scientology is in practice a jumble of hypnotic techniques, Freudian theories, Buddhist and Hindu concepts, Aleister Crowley-style occultism and Gnosticism.

Just who was L Ron Hubbard?

The erstwhile pulp science fiction writer Lafayette Ron Hubbard claimed to have been an acclaimed explorer, a nuclear physicist and a war hero. He was none of those according to Russell Miller, author of a biography called Bare Faced Messiah. He dropped out of college with failing grades, never saw combat and had two bigamous marriages. An American judge once said Scientology mirrored Hubbard's schizophrenic and paranoid personality. As a sci-fi writer he once said: "Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion."

Has it made much money?

Sociologists who have studied it say that someone who works their way through all its levels will spend between $300,000 and $500,000. In the UK the Cult Information Centre knows of people who have spent "tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of pounds" trying to free their inner Thetan. But you can make money out of it too. Scientology pays members commissions on any new recruits they bring in.

Does it do any good?

Scientology volunteers have begun turning up to "assist" wherever natural disasters strike. Their website carries reports from two just back from an earthquake in Peru. They run an anti-drug programme called Narcinon, which involves exercise, saunas and vitamin B. The British advertising watchdog has criticised a Scientology advert which claimed it had rescued a quarter of a million people from drugs but accepted that the church had helped many addicts.

So is it a cult?

Scientologists vehemently deny this. In the United States the Cult Awareness Network, which was for 20 years America's best-known source of information and advice on religious cults, thought so. But the Scientologists took so many legal cases against it that legal fees forced the Network into bankruptcy. Whereupon the rights to its name, logo and hotline number were bought by a Scientologist who continued the organisation, but now staffed by Scientologists.

Does it behave like a cult?

It splits people from their families. Members send their parents letters saying: "At present I am not interested in receiving your calls, emails or letters, and if you do send any, I will view it as harassment and I won't bother reading them so please don't waste your time." Scientologists call that "disconnect" and say it is a rare last resort. Those who have quit say it induces "sensory deprivation and sensory overload, guided imagery and visualisation, trance induction through repetition of words or slogans...". It cuts members off from both external information and inner reflection. It creates a mystique of importance around the group and its leader – Hubbard is known as "The Source".

How does it handle criticism?

In the early years Hubbard issued in writing a policy that enemies of the church were "Fair Game". They could be "deprived of property or injured by any means... tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed." The organisation claims that policy has been revoked. But it routinely tries to close down critics on the web. In 1995 it tried to shut the internet newsgroup alt.religion.scientology. It has tried legally to force search engines such as Google and Yahoo! to omit any webpages critical of Scientology from at least the first few search pages.

Journalists who have investigated the organisation – Hubbard called them "chaos merchants" – have found themselves sued, harassed, smeared, and followed.

Is Scientology a force for good in the world?

* It is essentially a self-help organisation that makes people feel good about themselves

* It runs programmes to help drug addicts and criminals

* Even if its sci-fi elements are wacky they are essentially harmless

* It is a sinister, manipulative money-making cult that is dangerous and divisive

* It cuts members off from their families

* It harasses its enemies and abuses the trust of its members

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Tom Cruise Breaks Silence on Scientology: It’s a ‘Beautiful Religion’

The megawatt movie star spoke publicly for the first time in years about his secretive, controversial religion, of which he’s been a star member for ‘over 30 years.’

Amy Zimmerman

Entertainment Reporter

As a 54-year-old action hero , Tom Cruise has a few tricks up his sleeves: elevator shoes, and a snazzy little spiritual practice known as Scientology. Much like Motorola Sidekicks and Juicy Couture zip-ups, L. Ron Hubbard’s controversial church appeared to peak in the 2000s, thanks to a star-studded roster of worshippers. Despite boasting a theological doctrine that is at odds with both modern science and human reason, the house that Hubbard built has welcomed such luminaries as John Travolta, Christopher Reeve, and Will and Jada Pinkett Smith.

Unfortunately, like a celebrity marriage arranged by church officials, these relationships have almost unanimously led to messy breakups. In 2015, King of Queens actress and ex-church member Leah Remini went public about her own Scientology separation . Remini, whose “Operating Thetan 3” level in the institution allowed her access to secret L. Ron Hubbard documents, described his writings as “some crazy shit”, and started to cool off on the religion after Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise’s uncomfortable wedding. But since Scientology prohibits members from talking to those of little faith, Remini feared the personal fallout caused by her departure. These fears came to fruition when Remini was quickly smeared by the Church of Scientology, which hand-delivered a packet of anti-Remini materials to 20/20 in preparation for the actress’s big tell-all interview. Remini was forced to pick up the pieces of her reputation without the help of her newly estranged friends, many of whom chose to mirror the church’s cold shoulder.

But among all of Remini’s allegations, the most fascinating concerned Scientology’s golden boy, Tom Cruise. “Being critical of Tom Cruise is being critical of Scientology itself,” she told 20/20 last year. “You are a person who is anti the aims and goals of Scientology. You are evil.” As countless fellow stars have jumped from Scientology’s creepy, sinking ship, Cruise has stood by the religion, arguably to his own personal and professional detriment. Tom Cruise is the Kellyanne Conway of Scientology.

While Cruise is inarguably the celebrity face of the declining brand, he’s mostly remained mum about all that thetan mumbo jumbo. Rare exceptions include a YouTube video of Cruise proselytizing among converts, which was shown at a 2004 International Association of Scientologists meeting. Over the course of the nine-minute video, Cruise reveals his cult-like dedication to the cause. “I think it’s a privilege to call yourself a Scientologist, and it’s something you have to earn, because a Scientologist does,” says a committed Cruise. “He or she has the ability to create new and better realities and improve conditions.” He adds, “Being a Scientologist, when you drive past an accident, it’s not like anyone else. When you drive past, you know you have to do something about it because you know you’re the only one that can really help.”

Cruise’s reticence about publicly discussing his not-so-private faith is most likely due to the fact that talking about Scientology makes him sound like a raving narcissist. Given the clear and present threat to his public image, it’s hard to say why the actor was recently driven to break his silence . On the red carpet for his latest film, Jack Reacher 2: Never Go Back , Cruise opened up about Scientology. And unfortunately for both the star and his publicist, Cruise can never go back.

The actor’s remarks, from calling Scientology a “beautiful religion” to boasting about being a member of the faith “for over 30 years,” can be most accurately characterized as glowing. “It's something that has helped me incredibly in my life,” he declared. “It’s something, you know, without it, I wouldn’t be where I am… I’m incredibly proud.” Unlike his Jack Reacher sequel, Cruise’s relationship with Scientology has been closely watched and widely discussed. In the past, a more open, jumpier Cruise credited Hubbard’s methods with helping him overcome his dyslexia. In return for this off-brand method of treatment, Cruise has apparently allowed the church to basically run his life .

According to the incendiary Scientology documentary Going Clear : Scientology and the Prison of Belief , the Church has continuously over-reached its non-existent boundaries with celebrity clientele. When Cruise’s second wife, Nicole Kidman, attempted to distance her husband from the faith, she was allegedly labeled a “Suppressive Person” by Scientology head David Miscavige. The documentary claims that the religion proceeded to wage an all-out war against Kidman, tapping her phones and attempting to turn her children against her. Miscavige allegedly tasked Marty Rathbun, formerly the second-highest-ranking official in the Church of Scientology, with the crucial task of dismantling the celebrity marriage. “I was to facilitate the breakup with Nicole Kidman,” Rathbun says in the film.

After Cruise and Kidman divorced in 2001, the star and his Church continued their search for a more compliant, and even more height-inappropriate partner. Cruise ultimately landed on Katie Holmes, his soon to be third ex-wife. Once Cruise and Holmes started going steady, the actress was assigned a Scientology handler to accompany her on press tours and monitor her interviews. The made-for-propaganda TV couple married in 2006 in a Scientologist wedding, with matchmaker extraordinaire Miscavige serving as Cruise’s best man.

Like so many women attempting to ignore a glaring red flag, Holmes gave her husband’s religion a shot but was reportedly overwhelmed by the intensity of both Cruise and his church buddies. When Cruise and Holmes split in 2012, it was amidst rumors that the star feared her husband was planning to ship their daughter Suri off to Sea Org—an elite training division of the Church that requires its members to sign a “billion-year contract.” According to the ensuing divorce deposition, when lawyers asked Cruise if Holmes left him “in part to protect Suri from Scientology,” Cruise first said he found the question “offensive” and that “there is no reason to protect my daughter from my religion,” before admitting, “Did [Holmes] say that? That was one of my assertions, yes.”

But while Holmes and Cruise ultimately agreed to disagree about the age of the universe and the legitimacy of psychiatry , Scientology has continued to differentiate their parenting styles to disastrous effect. While Holmes prefers a hands-on approach, including such adventures as picking Suri up from school and taking her outside, Cruise appears to parent exclusively from within the confines of his own home . The last time Cruise was photographed with his daughter Suri was around three years ago, when he took her to Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon Water Park in Florida. Cruise might have an original excuse for spurning his spawn, but his “divorced daddy takes you to Disney World routine” is downright cliché. According to an InTouch update from early June 2015, Cruise hasn’t seen his ten-year-old daughter IRL since she was seven. “They used to Skype and text, but that trailed off drastically,” a source told the gossip mag. In other words, Cruise has more contact with Siri than Suri.

“Disconnection”—or the severing of all ties between a Scientologist and an “antagonistic person”—is a common theme within Scientology. According to the official Scientology website , this extreme practice is defined as when “all spiritual advancement gained from Scientology may well be lost because one is continually invalidated by an antagonistic person who wants nothing more than to do harm to the person. In order to resolve this situation, one either ‘handles’ the other person’s antagonism with true data about Scientology and the Church or, as a last resort, when all attempts to handle have failed, one ‘disconnects’ from or stops communicating with the person.” In other words, Cruise may be under direct orders not to associate with Holmes and Suri, two well-known ex-members of the Church of Scientology.

While we do not know whether Cruise has entirely disconnected from his daughter, the InTouch report concluded with the frightening observation that “Tom eats, breathes and sleeps Scientology”—a notion that his latest comments seem to corroborate. Given Cruise’s inability to make any statement about Scientology that doesn’t sound like Stockholm Syndrome, it’s difficult to suss out just how deeply his ties to the church go. Then again, if Holmes’s rumored five-year divorce clause against publicly discussing Cruise or Scientology is actually a thing, there’s still hope for an upcoming tell-all. It might be too late for Tom Cruise, but Katie Holmes’s explosive memoir could very well save 2016.

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